You Never Can Tell
by Championship Vinyl
Summary: What happens when the curtain comes down? Catch up with all your favorite characters, including some very important new ones, like the light of Stars Hollow, Rory Huntzberger's daughter... ;3 Rogan/JavaJunkie. Please read and review! Thanks!
1. Previously On Gilmore Girls

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**All right, all right, my recent atomic explosion of Rory/Logan muse is bugging me to do this, and you know how the muse hates to be ignored... ;-) Warning: THIS FIC IS STRICTLY ROGAN [SOPHIE] / JAVAJUNKIE, because *I* am strictly Rogan [Sophie] / JavaJunkie. If you're into Literati, that's great, *I'm* not, NOT at ALL, so either please, enjoy this fic, or find one you **_**can**_** enjoy. Flames on the basis of pairing preference are uncalled for: know what you're stepping into, people.**

**Okay, this is usually right about the place where I talk a little bit about what's coming up, but you know what? I really don't want to give anything away here. I'll just say that I have NEVER done something like this before (I like Gilmore Girls too much, and there was always a lot of pressure associated with making up the rest of their lives), and that you'll see a whole bunch of familiar and beloved characters. (And **_**yes**_**, before you say anything, I AM still working on the other fics-in-progress.)**

**Also, I don't own anything I might reference in this story. And I do own my idea of Rory & Logan's daughter, Ellie, and if somebody out there has used that name for her before, I'm sorry, I didn't take it, it's a common idea and there are only so many nicknames for "Lorelai." Oh, and the title of this story is the name of a Chuck Berry song, which they played when Rory and Logan were at Finn's birthday party in the season 5 episode "Pulp Friction."**

**This first chapter isn't really the beginning...more like a...**_**pre**_**-beginning, hence the chapter title, "Previously On Gilmore Girls." I just wanted to set up the basis for the main story. Okay! Let's get this show on the road---literally. We're on the Obama campaign trail in late June, 2007, about a month after the series finale.... **

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"...So like I was saying, I kept telling him, 'I don't _have_ the hard copy, you never _gave_ it to me,' and of course he's looking at me like something out of a Wes Craven movie with six heads, and so he says 'Why would I say I gave it to you if I didn't?' I _wanted_ to say, 'do the words Jose Cuervo mean _nothing_ to you, Ty?' But of course the idiot didn't think to save the copy on the Mac, and there was a deadline, so we had to hunt for it.... Rory? Are you listening?"

At the sound of her name, Rory stopped walking and looked up, and Myra stopped along with her. "What? Oh, yeah, yes, absolutely---Jose Craven, I'm with ya."

Effectively, yes, that was a lie---Rory just didn't want to admit it. More specifically, she didn't want to admit that she didn't want to _be_ here, a month into the campaign trail, racing around and staying in seedy motels and walking down a Manchester, New Hampshire street with Myra from the Newswire talking about...whatever she was talking about. Sure, the campaign was everything she'd ever _dreamed_ for a starting job, but....

"Rory?" The sound of her fellow reporter's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. "Yeah, 'cause I hear Jose Craven's real big with the red carpet set. What's with you? You okay?"

It was sweet of Myra to be concerned, it really was, but she had no reason to be, really she didn't, and Rory put on a succinct smile. Shook her head, too. "Really, I'm fine. Just a little wired, I guess. Too much coffee, not enough sleep. I swear it's nothing."

"You sure you're okay Ace?"

_What?_ Rory stared at Myra in disbelief, blinking just to make sure her eyes weren't acting as freaky as her ears. "What?"

"I _said_, you sure you're okay Gilmore? God, I guess that answers my question."

_Oh. Well. Good._ "No, no no no, Myra, that doesn't answer your question, I'm fine, I promise. Just tired---maybe a little overheated too, come to think of it... But I'm okay. Really. Scout's honor."

One more convincing Rory smile, and that was enough to satisfy Myra for the moment. "All right, Gilmore, I'll buy it. Just do us both a favor and don't write anything while you're in la-la land; distraction does not bode well for the editor, and we all know how fun those red pens are." A quick laugh at that, then she pointed to a café down the street. "I'm gonna get one of those big soft pretzels; you want anything?"

"No, I'm gonna wait here, see if I can find my notes on the similarities between the senator and Noam Chomsky---I had 'em yesterday, but I think I might have left them on the bus or something, I don't know."

Myra shrugged---she was somewhat used to the note-taking whirlwind that was Rory. "Knock yourself out."

Staying behind from the pretzel hunt, Rory found a bench and started sifting through the stack of notes she'd been carrying whose width rivaled that of a compact dictionary. Everything for her current story was there, and everything for the one she'd sent in on Thursday, but so far nothing on the Chomsky angle.

Of course, as the sadistic Luck would have it, the wind chose to kick up at that moment. Rory managed to keep most of the stack in order, but one lone, stupid sheet of paper blew from the bottom and went tumbling and fluttering down the street.

"Agh! No!" Clutching a death-grip onto what she had left, Rory bolted out of her seat and went gracelessly running after it. There was tripping involved, some 'excuse me' -ing and a certain amount of undignified scrambling---this stupid stubborn paper seemed to think that the gutter was the only place to travel in. And then, after almost taking out a pedestrian and two bikes, her journey ended. At a black pair of shoes. And the black-clad pair of legs that went with it.

"Hi Rory."

She knew that voice. She'd known that voice for three years, and she wasn't hearing things this time. She imagined if she looked up, she'd see probably a shirt and a jacket and then after that a head, 'cause that's usually the next thing you found on a human, and the head would have the face on it that she hadn't seen since graduation.... So she did look up, and she stood up, and she was right, except he was scruffier than usual.

Logan.

"Hi," she managed. There was a fighting chance that she was actually awake right now, so she figured it would be best to actually _say_ something, you know, just in case.

With the slightest shadow of his old smirk, Logan pulled a sheet of paper from behind his back. He handed it to Rory, who took it tentatively. "I'd keep a tighter leash on page ninety here. Caught him makin' a break for it. Must have been some mutiny---you use the non-eco-friendly highlighters again?"

"Thanks," was all she said to that, indicating her notes.

Logan sighed, shuffling a little in his place, and then: "Big story, huh?"

Rory nodded.

"So you're actually comparing Noam Chomsky to Barack Obama."

"Oh, now, come on," she said suddenly.

"That's like saying Dick Cheney and Winston Churchill would have made good golf buddies."

"Well which one's Cheney, Barack or Noam?"

"Not the point, Ace."

"I stand by my reasons."

The smirk was back in full now. "You always do." Something about that---probably the note of nostalgia and caring in that; more than a note, more like a letter, actually---proceeded to bring any comfortable banter to a screeching halt.

There was another beat of silence as the breeze floated over them, and then, quietly---really, was there any other way to do this?---Rory spoke. "Logan, what are you doing here?"

"Here? What, New Hampshire's a cool scene; thought I'd come by and drop a few tax dollars on one of those, 'My friend went to New Hampshire and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' t-shirts."

"Logan."

Another sigh; this one somehow saying so much more than the last one. That he was exhausted, that he didn't know how to say this. "I miss you, Rory. I thought just splitting up would be easier than going backwards, back to the long-distance thing, but it didn't take long before I realized I'd rather spend five minutes a day catching you on the phone than not spend the rest of my life with you. I was an idiot to walk away like I did. In fact I'm a little surprised you didn't bolt in the other direction when you saw it was me."

"Well," Rory said carefully, more than a little blindsided, "For a while there I would have. I wanted to hate you. I tried to hate you, but I just couldn't do that." Her words came slowly, like Bambi learning to walk. "First I tried to just...push everything away, and not deal with it, and that didn't last.... Then I was mad at you for leaving, because it killed me to watch you walk away like that, until I realized...I kind of killed you too. By saying no. I..."

"No, Rory, don't blame yourself for that; you weren't ready, I should've _known_ you weren't ready. It's just...for the first time in my life, _I_ was ready, and I didn't want to wait." Logan paused again, and again this time, what he said afterward was more than a little surprising. "I quit that job in California."

Rory's eyes went wide. More so than usual. "What? Logan, no! That job was---"

"Not where I wanted to be," he finished. "Relax, Ace; It went very well, they took it very professionally, I even got a severance package, not much, but it was something. In fact one of the guys out in Palo Alto must have liked me, 'cause he gave me a reccomendation for this online business consultant. I got the job---I can work from anywhere that gets an internet signal, no office required."

"Wow, Logan, that's...that's amazing," Rory managed. All of this was just so...out of the blue, and it wouldn't have been so hard to wrap her head around if she hadn't just spent the past month hoping for it, wanting to see him, hoping to hear what it sounded like he was saying....

"Yeah, well. I've got a lot of time to make up for," he told her, the sincerity in his voice apparent. "Rory, when you were trying to figure out whether to take the job at the ProJo, and you had the pro-con list, I told you _I'd_ factor _you_ in. Now I don't know when I must have forgotten that, but I'm not anymore. I've memorized the campaign schedule, I've been following your route for three days, I took a plane and two buses just to get here to tell you that I love you, and I'm sorry, and if you still want me I don't care if I have to wait a hundred _years_ for you to be ready, I'm not going anywhere. I love you, Rory."

Once the speech was over, Logan just stood there, looking like he'd just done a 20-yard dash and waiting for her to say anything, anything at all, just some small sign that at least she'd heard him and wasn't about to kick him anywhere unpleasant without proper warning.

But he only had a millisecond to wait. Rory kissed him, without hesitation, more grateful than ever that she actually was awake. And if she wasn't...well, she'd just as soon stay here anyway.

After a thousand years they pulled apart just enough to catch a breath, and you would've had to have been blind to miss the giant grins across their faces. "You're factoring me in?" Rory whispered.

"I'm factoring you in."

"And you don't mind waiting?"

"'Till the cows come home."

"And you're coming with me?"

"Following the whole route, just try and stop me."

"You're too good to me, Huntzberger."

"Kiss me, Gilmore."

When Myra came back from the shop, giant pretzel in hand, she stopped in her tracks when she saw what was going on. Suddenly it was perfectly clear what had been wrong with Rory---a guy thing, something to do with Mr. Tall Blonde and Handsome, no doubt---and something told her it wasn't going to be a problem anymore.

A smirk crept across her face, and she shook her head, chuckling to herself. She'd been right. Ty owed her twenty bucks.

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**^^ Yay! XD I really tried to work it out so that they could be together without Rory giving up the reporter job, so ditching Logan's job in Palo Alto seemed the best way to do that---I'm hoping it came across like I wanted it to. At any rate, please review, and let the story begin!**

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	2. That's What You Get, Folks

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**THANK YOU SO MUCH to the people who have told me they love this already! To receive so many great reviews within twenty minutes of publication is definitely a record for me. ^^ So thank you guys! Times like these remind me why I do this. XD**

**All right, time for the actual story to commence! To catch you up on [my idea of] how things would go after that: **

**Loriluke: Luke and Lorelai would not have wanted to waste any more time once they got back together. They'd have gotten engaged around June '07, and were married on October 14th, 2007. They'd have William Richard Danes on September 2nd '08, so by the time this chapter takes place, he's one year and eleven months old. **

**Rogan: Logan would follow Rory for the rest of the campaign, working from his laptop, and once Obama won and the campaign was over, the New York Times would have read Rory's pieces and offered her a writing job after all, which she'd be more than happy to take. Around October '08, Logan would tentatively propose again, and Rory would say yes this time, and they'd get married on June 10th, 2009, when she's 24 and he's 27. **

**(Obviously I've put a lot of planning into this. You have no idea. XD ) **

**For narrative's sake, we'll catch up with them now, in August 2010. (Ah, the wonderous time-travel capabilities of fiction.) Without further ado....**

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"Just...just move it a little to the right.... I'm beginning to think this may not have been the best idea...."

"_None_ of your ideas are good, Taylor."

"Just move it, and I'd appreciate it if you'd dispense with the attitude?" Doose scribbled a few things onto his clipboard, standing at a safe distance---arm-swinging length, you might say---away from Gypsy and Jackson, who were doing their admirable best to keep a grip on the shiny new six-foot sign he'd ordered.

"Remind me...why you needed a new sign?" Jackson grunted, adjusting his grip.

"_Because_, young man, the one I first ordered six years ago has noticeably diminished in color, not to mention the paint is chipping under the two 'p's and I can not _count_ the number of times we've had to reattatch the first 's.' Now, just...let's try it on the left again."

Jackson and Gypsy grudgingly complied, and Taylor went back to his record of measurements---until the reflection of sunlight off the side of a silver Porsche caught his eye. Lifting his head, Taylor offered a smile and a wave to the passing vehicle that Mayberry itself would envy.

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"Ceasar, I need two chef salads and a tuna melt no tuna."

"A tuna melt without the tuna?"

"Now you're catching on."

"But isn't that basically just a grilled cheese?"

"Look, don't bug me with symantecs, just make the sandwich."

"Fine, fine. Conformity's my middle name."

"What an interesting driver's liscence you must have."

Shaking his head in an I-can't-believe-I-deal-with-this sort of way, Luke went back to his stack of order receipts at the register, filing everything away like he always did. Ever since Will was born, he'd tried to resist the urge to strangle/kill people more often, but Will wasn't here, and Will didn't have to tolerate Ceasar.

This thought was punctuated by the jingling of the bell on the door. Without looking up, Luke was about to respond with something curt and gruff to the effect of 'sit down and shut up,' but he thought twice about that when he heard the new customer speak.

"Nice joint---now where's that lazy proprietor?"

_Now_ he looked up, and despite his five-years-ago-self, he smiled at the kid. Without even forcing it and everything. "Hey, Logan! I didn't know you guys were comin' in this weekend."

"Yeah, well, we didn't know ourselves until about six hours ago," Logan grinned, walking to the counter and grabbing a stool. "Rory seemed pretty set on it, which works for me, and apparently she got an exstension on that media story, so, here we are."

"She in the car?"

"And avoid a Luke's fix? Nah, she had me drop her off at your place on the way," Logan explained, getting out his wallet. "I'm just the barista."

"What can I get ya?" Luke laughed.

"Just three coffees to go---unless you're joining us, in which case make it four..."

"Nah, I've still got a few hours to put in here. Taking people's money in exchange for meatloaf: big fun."

"Three it is then."

Luke turned around and prepared three to-go cups, then set up the coffee maker for a fresh pot.

"So how's Will doin'? Growing like a weed last time I saw him."

"Oh, he's just great," Luke beamed. Pretty much the only time Luke did anything close to the word 'beam' was when he was talking about his boy. Or April. Or Rory. Or Lorelai. Luckily Logan had that in common with him, more or less, so he wouldn't have to kill him later. "Still growing---I swear, you'd think that'd slow down eventually, but we can't keep him in clothes for more than a month."

"Good luck with that," Logan laughed. Luke handed him the cups in one of those crude cardboard caddies Lorelai had talked him into using, and Logan laid down the money, but the elder man shook his baseball-capped head.

"Nope, on the house."

"Oh, come on man, this is your place of business; you're underestimating my perseverance if you think I'll cave that easily."

"Fine, but don't tip. And don't argue."

"I'm good with that. See you at home."

With a nod of agreement, Luke took Logan's money from the counter and watched him get into his car, shaking his head for the thousandth time since he'd woken up this morning. On the plus side, it was for a much less frustrating reason.

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Lorelai was walking from the kitchen to the living room, having just put Will down for a nap, which, naturally, meant it was ice cream time; hence the tub and the spoon. The whole 'being a mom again' thing was coming a lot easier than she'd imagined---of course, this time there were no chem lab midterms or insipid gym classes to change for, so, that probably had something to do with it.

"So what inspired this sudden need to crash?" she asked Rory, who was perched on the couch. "I mean, don't get me wrong, Mrs. Huntzberger, mi fridge full of baby formula es su fridge full of baby formula, but seriously, what's up?"

Rory just sort of sat there, saying nothing, staring in the general direction of the TV while at the same time not actually watching it.

One of Lorelai's many talents was catching on to stuff like this. "Okay, kid, start filling in the thought bubble."

Rory looked up at her mother, and the look on her face was pretty undefinable---kind of happyish, kind of worried, mostly just unsure. "Mom. Sit. Okay?"

"O..._kay_...." Lorelai set down the ice cream on the coffee table and took a seat in her usual place on the sofa. "Is this one of those mideast peace talks? 'Cause I think if it's _that_ serious we need an actual table, at least a nice dining set if not the real oval office...maybe we could get away with a rectangular office...."

"I need you to do me a favor," Rory said. Reaching into her purse on the floor next to her, she pulled out a small, unopened box. With E.P.T. on the side. And the cute little picture of the baby.

Lorelai drew in a breath, kind of like getting the wind knocked out of her but in reverse. When she finally said something, she ended up stammering, "You...want me to _take_ it for you? 'Cause hon, I really don't think it works that way."

"No, I'll take it. I want you to read it for me," Rory clarified. She was strangely calm, which made Lorelai just a little bit calmer by extension. "I can't. I tried to take one back in Manhattan, and I ended up wrapping it in an Us Weekly and throwing it out the window."

"Wow. Bet the neighbors appreciated that."

"Mom..."

"No no, I know, I know. So...are you....not _happy_ about the...possibility of this?"

Rory took a deep breath, good and slow. "Actually, I think I am. I mean...we didn't _plan_ for...well, _now_, but Logan's doing really great, and I'm settled in at the Times, and we're really happy. I just...can't read it myself. It's big."

"_Really_ big."

"So...? Will you?"

Lorelai sighed, and she even managed to smile: if Rory was ready and confident, then, she could be ready too. "Absolutely. You do what you gotta do, I'll make the final call. It'll be like I'm finally a judge on So You Think You Can Dance."

"Thanks mom," Rory said, her relived sincerity overwhelming. She wrapped Lorelai in a hug before standing up, and, leaving the forgotten the ice cream to melt on the table, Lorelai followed her, waiting patiently-but-not-patiently ouside the closed door.

A minute passed. "Well?"

"You do not harass the test-taker!" came Rory's voice through the door.

"Well come on! I'm dying out here!"

"_You're_ dying? It's _my_ big life-step, you've had two already."

"Oh look, Logan's home!"

"Is he?"

"Yeah, and Kirk's peeking in the window, and the Rockettes are on the front lawn, and that whole ozone thing's been taken care of, and it's 2075 and we're all wearing silver jumpsuits!"

"He is not."

"Oh look, it's Quintomom---she's had fifteen more babies since you've been in there."

"Ha ha."

There was a short period of silence after that, and it was all Lorelai could do not to break the door down. "Well?"

Another beat, and then: "Okay, come in."

Lorelai turned the knob slowly, and pushed the door aside. Rory was facing the shower curtain, arms folded, as if the pattern on it was what held her future and not the little plastic stick.

"It's on the sink," she informed her mother.

Lorelai nodded, and she studied the result. Rory was hearing an annoying amount of _nothing_ from behind her, which was especially annoying because if ever there was a woman you could count on to jabber until the cows came home, it was Lorelai Gilmore.

Now it was Rory's turn to do the "What?" -ing.

She turned around and faced her mother---not looking at the test, mind you, just at Lorelai. Whose big, goofy grin was a dead giveaway.

"Really?" Rory's face was overtaken by the smile that ate New York.

Lorelai nodded. "I just hope Logan brings a resuscitator with him, or it might be an interesting night."

Rory let out a squeal, and so did Lorelai, and the next ten minutes were spent in a flurry of hugging and hopping and squealing that would confuse the pants off of any passers-by.

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**All I can say to that is XD. Just...that's it. XD. Again, THANK YOU to all you guys, you rock! I'm lovin' the reviews, so please, keep 'em comin', and the next chapter's on the way!**

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	3. It Still Takes A Village

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**Again, thanks everybody! Glad you're likin' it. You keep readin,' and I'll keep writin.' ^^ Not much to say this time, just enjoy!**

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Rory's room still hadn't changed in all these years. All right, sure, so it was technically Will's room now, but the transition had taken only a few adjusments. A hand-crafted crib was under the window, where her desk used to be, and in the dresser's place sat a changing table---both desk and dresser safely in storage until Will was old enough to need them. The chair and bedspread were dark blue now---Rory had even had a hand in picking them out---but Will wouldn't be using either for a while, and there were toys and children's books on the shelves instead of Kafka. But essentially, that was it. Nothing else was any different. The walls were still covered in travel posters and Yale peraphenalia---to give her little brother something to aspire to---and even the trundle bed was still there, left over from the Gigi debacle.

It was the trundle bed where Rory sat now, staring at the wall, processing. Lorelai had used the half-hour notice of their visit to fix the beds up for them---having refused to store it for exactly this reason, by the way---and had taken Will with her into the living room, under the guise of trying to teach him to say 'David Bowie.' Rory knew her real reason, though: to give her some time alone to think. And process. Which she was grateful for, because she needed to do exactly that. Process.

This was good news. Her initial reaction when she'd found out had definitely been positive, and the extensive pro-con list she'd just made in her head leaned that way too. She was actually ready for this. But was Logan? And how to tell him?

A second pro-con list wasn't in the works. It was right about then that Rory heard the front door open, and she listened in to the muffled conversation coming from the living room.

"Hey Lorelai. God, Will, you're getting big, buddy!" Logan's voice.

"Hey, Logan---he is, isn't he? We're just about to enter him in the Guinness book. Will, show Logan what mama just taught you. Say 'David Bowie!' Say it!"

"...Doby."

A laugh from Logan. "Close enough."

"And ah, you come bearing coffee!"

"That I do. Where's Rory?"

"In her room."

"She typing? I don't wanna break the marathon-man concentration."

"No, go on in; I think she'll want to see you."

"'Kay. Keep workin' on that!"

"Okay honey, repeat after mama: Day-vid. Bow-wie."

Footsteps now, coming closer to her room...she had about six seconds left to think up some way to break it to him, other than handing him a Hallmark card with 'you're gonna be a daddy' on it, which was never an option in the first place.

The door opened. "Hey, Ace.... Staring contest with the wall?"

"No, no, just...sit down, Logan."

That was enough to cause some concern on his end. "Everything okay?" he asked, sitting next to her on the trundle bed.

"Yeah, well, it will be, it is, I just, have to tell you something."

"Okay, shoot."

Heh, if only shooting was that easy. Rory looked down a beat, then forced herself to look at him; he was focused on her with that concerned, 'actually listening' face he pulled all the time, and that was annoying, couldn't he be completely distracted and make this easier? There was a lot of pressure involved with dropping big news on someone who was actually awaiting it.

She took a deep breath. "Okay, here's the deal. You and Luke might have to fix up that second bedroom in our apartment; in fact, erase the 'might.' I mean, I'm not saying it'll just be you guys, I'll help, but I suck at spackling and my expertise might not last past fabric colors, and mom won't be much help unless one of the jobs involves ice cream. Or carrying stuff---she can carry stuff. Basically yeah, you and Luke. Maybe I can ask Lane if Zach can come out some weekend and help---"

"You are seriously rambling, Ace. Back up. We need to fix up the spare room?"

A nod.

"Oh, God, don't tell me Doyle's crashing again; if Paris needs a break I can reccomend a good Motel Six, I guarantee they'll leave the light on for him."

"No...it's not Doyle. And nobody's crashing. I'm talking permanent resident." Rory backed that up with an especially meaningful stare.

Logan's eyes got a little bit wider. "Permanent resident."

Nod again.

"Are we talking...my nose, your eyes, bun in the oven, nest egg, 'Doesn't-she-look-like-aunt-Judy' 20-percent-off-diapers kind of resident?"

"Yeah."

Neither of them said anything else for a long few moments there. "Holy..."

"I know."

"Wow."

"Exactly."

"Rory..." Logan fully turned to face her, and before she could guess whether he was going with freak or flight he pulled her to him and kissed her like he had the very first time.

She was about to pull away after a moment to continue the conversation, but he beat her to that too---_everything_ was off tonight. "I am _incredibly_ happy right now, you know that right?"

"I...do now," she stammered.

"You thought I wouldn't be? Aren't you happy about this?"

"No, I _am_, I _really_ am, I just...wasn't sure if you'd think we were ready."

"Well ready or not, here it comes," he grinned. "I know we didn't exactly _plan_ for this right now, but I'm good, you're good, we've got a good income, a town full of incredibly eccentric supporters.... Don't worry, Ace, it'll be fine."

Finally she let the releif/joy of it show on her face. Her blue eyes lit back up. "Yeah?"

"Absolutely." He kissed her one more time, and then: "And hey, if it's born in time we can take it to the next Doby concert."

"Doby?"

"Ask Will."

"I'll do that."

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The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, and the denizens of Stars Hollow were sound asleep in their beds when Lorelai, Rory and Logan began their walk to Luke's the following morning for breakfast. Actually, that's a bald-faced lie; it was ten a.m, the whole town already had a good three hours of productivity under their belts, and the sun wasn't even _close_ to the horizon anymore. They have _lives_. But still.

"So how should we tell Luke?" Rory wondered aloud. He'd had a few deliveries the night before, and by the time he'd come home, they'd all fallen asleep. She'd regret asking in a second, though.

"We'll hire a baton twirler," Logan supplied.

Lorelai loved to chime in on this kind of stuff. "We'll need a mattress or something for when he falls over."

"We should put an announcement in the paper."

"New York Times or Stars Hollow Gazette?" Lorelai inquired.

"The Times, the Gazette, the Courant, the Chronicle, why stop at one?"

"Ah, the father-to-be's a big thinker; I like it!"

"Do you think they still do those singing telegrams?"

"_Think_? _Please_, it's Stars Hollow; we've got three agencies _dedicated _to it."

"Great, I'll add it to the list."

Rory just rolled her eyes, but in a good way. "I don't think Luke should hear about this from you _or_ your marching band. In fact, he still thinks of me as a precocious ten-year-old, so there's still a slight chance he may want to remove your head from your body."

"Among other things," Lorelai muttered, fighting a grin.

"Then I'll brave it," Logan said with a grin of his own, leaning in for a kiss.

"Aww, aren't you two just _adorable_," Lorelai mocked in her best 'Blanche' voice.

"Oh, look at that, the door! And hey, I bet it opens." Rory pushed open the door to Luke's and walked inside with Logan and Lorelai on her heels. They took the girls' usual table, and it wasn't long before Luke came over with three coffees and an order pad.

"So everybody's---wait, where's Will?"

"He's fine, I dropped him off at Sookie's for the morning; I've got to work today," Lorelai explained.

"Oh. Good. Okay, focusing now. What'll you have?"

"The question _is_," Lorelai teased, "what will _you_ have---stroke? Aneurysm? Faint like a girl in a nineteen-fifties western?"

Luke was used to ramblings like this by now, but this one implied big news, so he was automatically curious. "Lorelai."

"Okay." This was Rory's voice now, and Luke turned his attention to her. "Luke---"

"Duck, Logan, _duck_," Lorelai whispered.

Rory shot her a quick 'knock it off' look and continued. "I was just wondering if you'd mind building me a crib; you know, like you did for Will?"

Luke probably wasn't aware that his pencil hit the floor, but he would be in an hour or two, so nobody bothered to point it out. The blue of his eyes became increasingly apparent as they grew to half of the size of his face. "You're _pregnant_?"

"Well, if not then the crib is pretty useless...."

"Oh my God, Rory, that's amazing! Congratulations!" Rory stood up, sensing this was a 'hug' moment, and Luke wraped her in one that pretty much confirmed that. Post-hug, Luke turned his focus a few degrees. "Logan---"

"Fight or flight, fight or flight," Lorelai whispered. But Logan stood up too, and Luke went for that sort of handshake-hug thing that men do. "Huh. I'm oddly disappointed. No offense Logan, it's just been so long since the nuke testing around here."

"Really, you guys, congratulations," Luke gushed. "This is...this is...I'm bringin' you pancakes. On the house. Lots and lots of pancakes. Excuse me."

Luke disappeared back to the kitchen, and the three at the table barely had time to trade a relived look before:

"So he knows?"

All three of them turned, and Miss Patty was at the table behind them.

"Uh, yeah, Patty, he knows," Lorelai confirmed, more than a little confused. "How do _you_ know?"

"Oh, please, honey, the garbage man found the test in the trash---you know Hayward Donnely, right?---and we know it isn't _you_, you just had one!"

"Well, a year and...eleven months ago."

"Eh, potato, potato. So Rory, Logan, congratulations!"

"That seems to be the consensus," Rory nodded.

"So it's out? We can stop pussy-footin' around now?" came Babette's voice from a table over.

"Yeah, it's out!"

"Oh, thank God, it's been _killing_ me," Andrew sighed from the counter.

Gypsy was by the register. "You know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

"Uh, well no, not yet...."

"I bet it's a girl! Who wants to bet me it's a girl? Come on, I got a crisp twenty right here."

"I'll go in on that."

"Put me in for five, on a boy!"

Rory, Logan and Lorelai stopped trying to quell the storm and gave in to the hurricane of crazy that was the town. Their focus belonged on the menus, where it actually had a chance to have a say.

Kirk's voice was the next they heard, and when they looked up, he was standing right in front of their table. "I knew it the moment you came in here. Haven't touched your coffee; it's a dead giveaway."

"Ummm, Kirk?" Lorelai gave him that look she reserved for only him and small children. "That's with alcohol."

"Yeah, Kirk, you can drink coffee when you're pregnant," Rory added. "I mean, not by the _vat_ or anything, unless multiple heads is a trait you're going for, but...."

"Nope, I can sense these things," the strange one insisted. "Mother says I'm very intuitive, which I know sounds like an insult but, don't worry, I looked it up, it's not. Yep, I pegged you for a preggosaurus the second that door opened."

Logan leaned over toward Rory with a grin on his face. "Has he ever been rejected from a mental institution?" he muttered.

"No, he never tried to check into one---unnatural fear of sock puppets."

"Emphasis on unnatural?"

"You got it."

"Well, I offer you both my sincerest congratulations," Kirk announced, oblivious, "and when the time comes to bring that little sucker into the world, keep in mind I'm training to be a liscenced midwife."

Lorelai practically spat out her coffee. "_You're_ a _midwife_?"

"Not yet, technically, I just have to pass the written exam. The job title's a little less masculine than I'd like, but the pay's good, and Lulu says it's a good idea."

"She said that _exactly_?"

"Technically she said 'If you have to,' but I took that as 'all systems go.' I'll see ya later."

The three at the table just watched Kirk leave, amused and astounded by his endless weirdness.

"Is there a job out there _not_ practiced by Kirk?" Rory mused, lifting her mug for a sip.

"Yeah. President."

"Give it time."

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**Ah, yes, what would a Gilmore story be without a(n un)healthy dose of Kirk? XD I initially wasn't going to include Logan's reaction in this chapter, just the Diner stuff, but in your reviews a few of you expressed your interest in seeing how he handled it, so thanks to you guys for the inspiration; that turned out to be one of my favorite sections. ^^ Keep up the reviews, they totally make my day, and I promise another chapter asap!**

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	4. Get A Little Action In

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**And bada-bing! Another chapter, as promised, fresh from the ovens, etcetera etcetera.... :] Oh, don't forget, even with Rory gone on the Obama trail and then working for the Times living in Manhattan, Lorelai has still been going to Friday Night Dinners all this time, most of the time Luke and then Will, too. Not to give that away, but come on: you knew the Gilmores were coming **_**sometime**_**. ;] Oh, and the title of this chapter is a line from Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting," which Lorelai quoted in season 6. Okay, go on...**

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"Oh my God, I cannot believe you're gonna have a baby! Okay, so, fill me in; how did Logan take it?"

Rory crossed her legs up onto the couch to face Lane better and hugged one of the throw pillows. Ever since Steve and Kwan came along the place had been decidedly cozier, though it had its train-wreck aspects now that the boys were three and running and....well, boys. They were currently down for a nap, though, so all was quiet on the girltalk front.

"He took it really well," Rory told her. "He's excited, he's supportive, barely freaked at all---he's being great," she said honestly. "And mom and Luke took it really well too. I mean, I guess I was kind of expecting them to flip out. It wouldn't be unexpected, they've got priors."

"Well, they just know you're ready," Lane concluded. She was always good at that; taking this kind of situation and reducing it into one neat reason. "You're just lucky Logan was so cool with it, you know, unlike _some_ people, who don't even register what you've said until days after you've said it." Ah, yes, the infamous story that Zach would probably love to erase from the anecdote list.

Rory smiled. "I _am_ ready, aren't I?" It wasn't even a question, so much as a pleasant realization.

"You are! And if you have _any_ questions you _must_ come to me; I am the baby guru---not that you haven't already read every child-rearing book on the east coast."

"Not _every_ one; I still haven't gotten through the 'q's."

"Right. My mistake."

At that moment the door flew open, and Zach came in with two grocery bags the size of Kwan and Steve. Following him were Gil and Brian, each with a bag of their own.

"Dude, all I'm saying is that _no way_ would Sonic Youth tour with the Sugarplastic," Zach was saying.

"You'd tour with anyone if it meant prime-time placement." This from Brian.

"Are we really back to that again? Why don't we just record your endless nagging and cut a demo of that."

"Not me, man," Gil chimed in, "I got scruples."

Lane directed an apologetic look at Rory before siccing a punishing one on the rest of Hep Alien. "Guys! I thought I said band practice was canceled today. Rory's here and I just got the boys to sleep."

"Hey, I'm just here to schlep groceries," Gil defended.

"Kyon's in Korea for the summer. I'm bored," Brian admitted, "and I'm a follower."

"Dude, that is _so_ not rock and roll..."

"Neither is using Pull-Ups coupons at Doose's..."

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The green Jeep and the silver Porsche were still there, sitting in the giant circular driveway, exactly as they'd been for the past five to ten minutes. And despite Logan's reassurances in one car and Will's adorable babbling in the other the whole way there, nobody was going inside. The four-and-a-half of them were just standing there, in an immaculately dressed and slightly nervous row.

"Anybody need the story?" Lorelai finally said, holding Will against a silk-clad hip.

Rory adjusted the hem of her best cute green cocktail dress. "I don't think the cow herderess thing'll apply anymore."

"I could modify it; it could be a cow herderess, two farm hands and a...okay, Will's still just a baby."

"Look, I say we just go in and see what happens," Logan suggested. His confidence was betrayed by the hand that kept reaching up to tug at his collar.

"Famous last words;" Lorelai snorted, "it'll be _you_ they have keel-hauled."

"No, they _like him_, remember? They'll probably find some way to blame _me_ for it," Luke pointed out.

"Oh, they will _not_."

"I wouldn't put it past them."

Rory reached over and swatted Logan's hand down. "Don't loosen your tie, these people can spot an undone Armani a mile away."

"Brooks Brothers Ace."

"The principle still stands."

"This isn't my first foray with Richard and Emily; they just keep it five thousand degrees out here."

"I doubt they control the weather."

"You don't know that."

Lorelai stepped up and rang the bell, just like ripping off a band-aid. "That goes for you too mister; hands off the collar," she directed at Luke, who rolled his eyes and re-tightened his own tie.

"I must be demented, I keep coming back here, every time it's like happiness's funeral."

Within moments, the great door was hauled open, and the latest in a never-ending stream of maids appeared on the other side. She took each of their coats and attempted friendly smiles with total stoicism, like some kind of jaded silent-movie character. A couple of 'how-do-you-respond-to-that' shrugs, and the group headed into the living room.

"No, Cecil, we _told_ you," Emily was saying, "the function for the dystrophy association is on the _fourteenth_, _not_ the fourth, and you have to make a donation or you don't get a seating." She and Richard were standing around the speakerphone, apparently dealing with yet another idiotic member of the human race.

"Oh, well...maybe I should discuss it with Vera then?" came from the phone.

"Maybe you should," Richard boomed, then muttered, "Insufferable woman."

"What was that?"

"An incomparable woman!"

"Well, all right, I'll let you get back to your evening. Thank you Richard, Emily; I'll get back to you by Sunday!"

"Goodbye Cecil."

"Good night, Cecil."

Once the phone was hung up and the neccesary exasperation put into sigh form, the elder Gilmores turned their attention to their guests.

"Rory!" Richard greeted with a hug. "It's certainly a pleasant surprise to have you in from the city. And you, Logan."

Rory hugged back. "Grandpa, we called to tell you we were coming."

"Yes, well, that doesn't mean it can't be a pleasant surprise just the same."

"And oh, Will," Emily cooed, "look how _big_ you're getting!"

"Yes, yes, he's growing like a weed---in fact, he's _on_ weed," Lorelai cracked.

"Lorelai!"

"Well, mom, it already made front-page news..."

Luke sensed that this would be a good moment to make his presence known---since it never was in the _first_ place---to shift the attention. He'd become an expert at deflecting arguments like that. "Emily, Richard, good to see you again."

Emily looked him over, almost startled at where the voice came from, then snapped on her 'hostess' smile. "Yes, Luke, how lovely."

"Hello Luke. Mutual, I'm sure."

Everybody in the room over the age of two who didn't own a club membership threw Luke a sympathetic glance at that moment: a 'sorry hon' from Lorelai, a 'that's cold, man' from Logan, and from Rory, an 'at least _you_ don't have to tell them what _I_ have to tell them.' Truer words were never communicated.

The four of them took a seat, Will on Lorelai's lap, and Richard handed out the drinks---martinis for the girls, scotch for Logan, and a beer for Luke---he knew everyone's usuals by now. Rory set hers on the coffee table.

"So," Emily began, smiling like Christmas morning, "what brings you two to this neck of the woods on such short notice?"

Rory turned a tentative look toward Logan. Logan responded with an 'are you sure you wanna do it _now_' glance. Rory nodded ever so slightly. Lorelai gave them both the 'good luck' face. Luke was staring at his beer. Will was staring off into space. Basically, there was a whole lot of looking and staring going on.

Rory was the one to break the glance-fest, first with a deep breath, then with an actual sentence. "Grandma, Grandpa, Logan and I have something to tell you."

Logan took one more drink of his McKellan neat and set it down on the coffee table---that was as close as he was gonna get to a last meal. Emily put her 'suspicious' face on, but it was Richard who spoke; calmly, patiently, even downright pleasantly: "All right, what is this news of yours?"

"Well..." _add a new word, attagirl,_ "the thing is...we're, going to have a baby."

"As in currently expecting, not as in some time in the distant future if that's what you were thinking," Logan chipped in.

"Right. Now. Well, not _now_ now, that would be really crappy timing...."

She let the pathetic sentence kind of fade off, and it was back to the glancing as silence fell over the room, except _now_, all eyes were on Richard and Emily. The Gilmores were just sitting there, staring at the young Huntzbergers like somebody'd slapped them, and in the Gilmore-Danes corner Lorelai piped up with:

"Okay, wow, time flies when you're causing strokes. Great dinner mom, so we'll see you next week? Hokay."

But the Gilmores were too busy ignoring Lorelai, as was their behavioral pattern, and these big, goofy grins took over their faces, completely shocking everybody else. Except Will. Who burped. Because he's a baby. That's what they do.

"You're having a baby," Emily repeated through her grin.

"She's having a baby!" Richard laughed.

"Richard, they're having a baby!"

"So I heard!"

Both the grandparents hauled out of their seats and gave Rory a giant hug---everybody at this point was ignoring Lorelai's jaw on the floor---and Richard gave Logan a pat on the back that would have cleared up any asthma issues, along with a handshake that put the test to just how connected that shoulder was. Fine physician, that one.

"You have _got_ to stop assuming people are going to take it badly," Lorelai gaped.

"Congratulations, you two---a new addition to the family is a fine blessing," Richard pronounced.

Emily nodded along with that. "We're so proud of you! The both of you."

Lorelai had to butt in there. "It's not like it's real difficult! You'd think you two would frown on the whole 'creation' process."

"Mom!"

"Well, _come_ on! For me it's a 'congratulations, take vitamins,' but Snow White and Ryan Seacrest announce a bundle of joy and they roll out the diamond registry!"

"Oh, stop. We were _thrilled_ when you told us about Will. And if you hadn't waited 'till your third month to tell us we'd have been even _more_ thrilled." Emily Gilmore, master of the subtle guilt trip.

Richard was the one who brought them back on track with the subject. "We may have been a tad overprotective of Rory in the past---"

"A tad? You've done everything but lock her up in a tower with a fire-breathing dragon."

"---but that was a different time." He glared at Lorelai for the interruption, then continued. "She is a married young woman now, a Yale graduate with an excellent job, and I personally am fully confident in her abilities to handle this."

Rory was noticeably flattered. "Wow...thanks, Grandpa."

"And don't you give her any of your patented home-remedy advice," Emily warned, pointing a finger at Lorelai.

"Wow, thanks, mom."

Another comment ignored. The elder woman's focus was already back on Rory. "So how far along are you?" she asked excitedly.

"About two weeks," Rory replied.

_There_ it was. Emily's face fell. "Two weeks?"

"Well..."

"You've known for _two whole weeks_ and you didn't tell us?"

"Well actually I..."

"She just found out yesterday, Emily," Logan intervened, trying to keep the peace. He tried one of those 'it's-a-funny-story' grins. "_I_ didn't even know until last night."

"That's hardly different," Emily scoffed.

The grin went away.

Nobody had noticed until now, but the Chaplin-esque maid was back in the doorway. "Dinner is served." Just those three words, and she was gone again. Probably a smart move.

"So, you're saying you wanted me to tell you before I told Logan?" Rory tried in disbeleif. "I mean, he's the father, I think if anybody should know first he's kind of earned it."

"Nonsense, that's absurd. You tell the father, you tell your mother, then you pick up the phone and you tell your grandparents!"

"Hey, everybody, I know you're in the middle of exodus but the scary scary maid said soup's on," Lorelai announced. "Shall we move this into the dining room and continue the _celebration_?" She leaded that last word with emphasis made specially for Emily. "Remember, the celebrating?"

Luke nodded helpfully as Lorelai stood up, taking Will from her and preparing to follow. "Dinner smells wonderful, Emily."

The rest of them stood---Rory and Logan cautiously, Richard exhaustedly, Emily just put-out---but nobody looked happy about it. It was a quiet parade into the dining room, but the conversation started up again just as everyone was seated and Luke was fastening Will into his six-trillion-dollar teak high-chair.

"So what about birthdays?" Emily demanded.

Rory: "Excuse me?"

"What about birthdays? Are we allowed to see the child on its birthday?"

"Emily..." Richard sighed.

"What? It's not a crazy question. We're not being told that its on its way, so why should we be allowed to see it?"

"Just be grateful they deemed it worthy to tell us face-to-face and not by instant message."

"Grandma, we weren't excluding you," Rory insisted. This was getting exasperating.

"What about delivery? I know you'll _never_ let us be there for the birth, _that's_ apparent. Are we at least allowed to send a nice greeting card?"

"You two can come to the birth if you want, Grandma."

"Emily, this was in no way a snub," Logan tried. "We just figured we were coming tonight anyway, it'd be better to tell you in person."

"Well, how thoughtful. I should feel lucky you dropepd by at all. If not who knows, I may not have found out 'till its fifth wedding anniversary."

"Hey, _she_ didn't tell you for _three months_!" Rory reminded her, desperate to shift the focus, pointing at a gaping Lorelai.

"Hey! Just sitting here!"

"Maybe you could send us a picture on holidays, that way at least we'll get to _feel_ as if we're involved; perhaps we could even talk to the picture and pretend it's the child."

"_Look_, everybody," Luke erupted. The rest of them shut up and took notice. "This is a _good_ thing, so we're all gonna sit here and be happy about it and share a nice dinner together and forget about who told who when!" A pause, a glance around the table, then he lowered his volume. "Now; Richard, could you pass the carrots?"

That was without a doubt the most words Luke had consecutively spoken and the highest volume he'd spoken them at---_ever_---at a Friday Night Dinner. It was enough to shock everybody else into compliance, and Lorelai, Logan and _especially_ Rory shot him a grateful look. Luke just went back to cutting up Will's carrots.

The silence lasted for about the next twenty minutes, until everybody heard a "Wogum" from the baby.

Emily paused, fork in midair. "What on earth is a 'Wogum?'"

"He can't say 'Logan' yet," Rory explained.

Lorelai started to push her chair back. "He probably needs changing and wants Logan to do it," she added.

"And he's done that?"

"Oh, yeah, he's been a huge help actually. Him and Rory both, when they're here. Will loves 'em. You eat, Logan, I'll get him."

"No, no, it's okay, absolutely not! I'll take him." Logan dropped his napkin on the table and stood up.

"You sure?"

"Oh, yeah, it's not a problem. Might as well practice." Lorelai shrugged and pushed her chair back in, and Logan grinned at his baby brother-in-law as he lifted him from the high-chair. "Ahh, there we go, come on big guy."

The girls watched him go, and then Lorelai turned to Emily.

"See mom? Wogum and Wowy know what they're doing."

Emily looked tired. "Wowy?"

"He can't say 'Rory' yet either. Or sometimes he calls her 'sissy,' which comes out like 'fiffy'...."

Lorelai slowly realized that both her parents were staring at her. "Sorry." And she went back to cutting up her carrots.

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The four-and-a-half of them were standing there again, nothing but a door between them and being Gilmored, only this time, they were facing the other way.

No one said anything. After a decade or two, Lorelai turned to Luke.

"Well; at least they ignored _you_."

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**Man, I loved writing this chapter. Probably why it's longer than War and Peace. XD So c'mon, don't stop with the greatly appreciated reviews now---tell me what you liked! What you think! Which part was your favorite! Anything! And for a limited time, I'll throw in the promise of another chapter and a healthy dose of more of your favorite characters. ;]**

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	5. Come And Knock On Our Door

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**(Title of this chapter's the theme song from Three's Company.) Again, for the sake of the narrative, we're doing another time-jump... It's now November 2010, Rory is three months along and...well, you'll just have to keep reading to get any more information now won't you. XD**

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There was nothing unusual about Rory and Logan Huntzberger walking through their front door at eight o'clock on a Saturday night. What was unusual was the direction they were walking---_into_ the house as opposed to _out_ of it. If you added up all the countless hours the two of them had spent bar-hopping and going to parties back at Yale...well, you'd have a lot of hours on your hands there. But that was a side-effect of Logan growing up. It wasn't as though they were hermits either---they went out all the time---it was just that Rory had finally imparted in him her love of a good movie night.

"Okay; we've got Billy Jack, we've got Final Destination, we've got two versions of It's A Wonderful Life, paella, mallomars, Oreos, Chinese, and seventy-five people on the phone wondering how in God's name you survived a childhood like this," Logan announced. The smirk gave him away though.

Rory knew the smirk. She would never admit she loved the smirk, but she loved the smirk. Okay, maybe not 'never.' She put on a mock-haughty expression, taking off her scarf and hanging it on the hook with all the authority of a razor-sharp businesswoman. "I'm surprised you even _think_ that you're _qualified_ to comment on such classic and or classically mockable films in any way that is not _one hundred_ percent positive."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes; in fact I think you owe Tom Laughlin an apology."

"We'll just see how bad the movie is---your buddy Tom might be the one apologizing."

The coats were off and hanging where they belonged now, and Rory plopped herself down on the big blue couch in the center of their apartment's living room. It was a nice place, big and well-furnished thanks to incomes from the Times and that good ol' internet business, but more importantly, it was perfect for _them_, personally. Just the place to hang out, be with family, co-exist, watch tons of movies. "I'll let that slide for now just because you're holding the food," Rory teased, motioning for the bag in Logan's hand. "Gimme, I need an egg roll."

"Here, Ace, go nuts," he laughed, dropping it right in front of her on the coffee table. "More so than you already are, if that's possible, which it might not be and in that case the world is probably ending."

"Probably." Rory reached into the bag and took out a spread of takeout cartons that would have made Lorelai very proud, but then she pouted. "Hey, you forgot something."

"What?"

"C'mere."

Logan walked toward her from the DVD player he'd been loading, slightly concerned but slightly confused also. "I went over that list _twice_, don't tell me you can't make do without that second fortune cookie." He picked up the bag and looked into it. "I'm failing to see the problem here."

"No, over here." Rory motioned for him to come around the coffee table, and he came and stood beside her. "Let's see, we got the rice, we got the duck, we got the garlic chicken and the sesame chicken and the orange chicken, and _oh,_ yeah, I know what's missing." Rory reached up pulled Logan down onto the couch next to her by his arm, almost as if she'd planned to do that the whole time. Convenient, since she had.

"You went through all that just to say 'I miss you,'" he laughed.

"I wouldnt've had to if you hadn't taken so long to sit down!"

"I was going to get the Oreos."

"Leave the Oreos. Forget the Oreos."

"You? Forget the Oreos?"

"Maybe just leave the Oreos."

"Yeahhh, that's what I thought."

"Just play the movie, you." Rory brought a hand up to the side of his face and brushed her lips against his, and once the urge to kiss him had been satisfied for the moment, she tucked her legs up onto the couch and snuggled into his side like a contented little girl. It had been a long week, she was happy and she was tired and she needed her Logan, so she was even happier when her Logan smiled and draped his arm across her shoulders.

"And I was kidding about the fortune cookie; you can have yours and mine and if you want, I'll go back there and buy the place out of 'em," he offered in a murmur, the Paramount logo playing in the background.

She tilted her chin up, and her eyes sparkled into his. "Really, a fortune-cookie famine? Whatever have I done to deserve such service?"

Logan just laughed, and Rory scooched even closer---if that was even possible---faced the widescreen TV, laid her head on his chest and grabbed an egg roll. They were still sitting that way two helpings of Chinese food, seventeen mallomars and half a movie later, when somebody knocked on the door.

Rory looked up at Logan. "Were you expecting somebody?"

He pressed pause, she moved back and he got up. "No, and if it's that guy selling refrigerator magnets again, we're moving."

"Fair enough. Uch, yeah, he creeps me out. Have you ever seen him on the interstate with the banjo, because I swear one time---"

Rory cut herself off when Logan got to the door; the best thing for whoever was knocking to hear would probably not be the creepy-magnet-guy story.

Logan put a hand on the lock but didn't turn it yet; it was Manhattan, safe neighborhood or not, he always liked to make sure they identified themselves. In fact he had a habit of letting his voice drop a little deeper and talking a little louder than was neccesary to be heard through a door---something Rory had spent many happy occasions mocking and laughing at and secretly kind of liking. "Who is it?"

An Australian accent came through the door. "Hopefully not the pizza delivery man, otherwise I've forgotten something and am going to be quite a disappointment."

Logan let out a laugh. Rory's jaw dropped, but in a good way. "We didn't order anything, now go away!" Now he was just messing with him.

Two more voices started up on the other side of the door, both familiar, all playing along. "It's been that long; he really doesn't recognize us?"

"I resent that, I'm quite memorable."

"You're both mad if you expect Huntzberger to be sober at this hour."

"Which one?"

"Well I don't recall Rory knocking any back."

"Such a long and true bromance, gone, gone!"

"It's a tragedy, gents."

"Ah, for the good old days."

"You can't _remember_ the good old days."

"I've heard lore."

Grinning like a rascal, Logan unlocked the door and put Colin, Finn and Robert out of their misery. They'd only seen the guys a couple of times since the wedding, and since there'd been _champagne_ at the wedding, the only evidence they'd been there at _all_ was the framed picture of them on the end table: Lorelai, Lane, Sookie, Honor, April and Paris on Rory's right, and Luke, Colin, Josh, Finn, Robert and Doyle on Logan's left. Never had that many members of a wedding party been so drunk.

The guys exchanged a healthy round of hand-shaking and shoulder-slapping like the butch creatures they tried to be, and Rory got up and hugged the poor loveable schlubs for old times' sake. "Well well well, won't Captain Morgan be surprised to know you three lived through the decade," Logan grinned. "What're you doin' here?"

"Guinness," Robert corrected.

Colin produced two bottles from behind his back, one of champagne and one of sparkling apple cider. "We heard through the grapevine that the lovely Rory was with child---"

"Well, the bump isn't for plate-balancing...all though you'd be surprised, it works for that too," Rory chimed in.

"---and we thought we'd come by and help you celebrate in spite of the fact that you didn't think it neccesary to tell us."

"And the fact that you gave me no contact information?" Logan countered.

"Irrelevant."

"Right, right."

Rory sat back on the couch, the boys sat in the chairs around the coffee table, and Logan went and got four stemmed glasses from the kitchen. "So how _did_ you hear exactly?"

Robert: "Top-secret government information?"

"Nah, but come on! Curiosity's beatin' the crap outta the cat here."

"Shira and the Dark Lord caved after a certain amount of savvy nagging and several inappropriate business cards," Finn supplied.

Logan returned from the kitchen with a corkscrew and opened the champagne. "You sought us out then, I'm honored."

Robert again: "Don't flatter yourself, Huntz."

Colin: "We're not looking for a serious relationship."

"I'm very into my career right now: it's not you, it's me," from Finn.

"Just time for a little Life and Death Brigade reunion?" Logan guessed.

"Exactly."

"You are correct sir."

"I'll drink to that."

"You'll drink to anything."

"This I cannot deny."

They all took a sip, Rory's being the apple one, of course. "So, Rory," this from Colin, changing the subject, "you have our sincere congratulations."

"Well thank you."

"And our offers to babysit," Finn piped up.

Robert downed another drink from his glass. "Speak for yourself."

"All right---_my_ offer to babysit."

Rory didn't even bother trying to keep a straight face. She loved Finn and the guys like the crazy, drunken cousins that they sort of were, but over her severely paralyzed body would they ever play Mrs. Doubtfire to her Miranda Hillard. "Finn, why on earth would you want to babysit?"

"Because I've _almost_ gotten Rosemary to marry me, and babies are a huge chick-magnet. And if that fails, there's always singles' bars."

"And the fact that you're only employed because McCrae took pity on you has no effect on her decision?" Robert inquired.

"God I hope so."

"Okay, I'm gonna jump in here: there is no way my kid is setting foot in a singles' bar."

Rory turned to give Logan an impressed look. "Look who's getting all daddy dearest."

"Comes with the territory."

"At least let me take it for a walk in one of those adorable little wheelie-things," Finn begged.

"A stroller?" Rory corrected.

"A walk, a stroller, whatever you kids are calling it these days."

Logan was having trouble keeping a straight face now too. "Why are you so desperate to use _my kid_ to pick up women? I thought you were on the verge with Rosemary."

"Yes, but if she sees other women fawning over me, she may get jealous, and a jealous woman is a powerful tool in the hands of...well, me. Never underestimate the power of bitter resentment, Logan."

"Fine, you can take it for a walk, but you're taking a chaperone." For some reason everybody's eyes fell on Colin, the Chandler to Finn's Joey, who looked around at them in resignation.

"Great, that's just what I need: walking an infant around the Village. And then there's the baby. _That'll_ attract plenty of women. We'll be the poster-children for gay adoption."

"Oh, Felix, darling."

"Oh Oscar dear."

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.

"See, spackling is so much better when you don't actually have to do the work," Lorelai commented.

Rory clinked her plastic cup of lemonade against Lorelai's takeout cup of Orange Crush. "I'll drink to that."

It was a bright, clear day for November, and the sun striped in through the bare windows of the really _really_ bare spare bedroom. Nothing was in there but a ladder and a few cans, tarps and brushes. Lorelai and Luke had left Will with Sookie and had come up to Manhattan for the day, all for the sake of turning the apartment's second bedroom into Babyland. Of course, the girls had absolutely zero fixer-upper skills, though, so that was where Luke and Logan came in.

Luke was the more practiced of the two, standing there in jeans, a grey t-shirt, and the ever-present baseball cap, whereas Logan was in jeans, a white t-shirt and plaster. He even had a streak of it on his cheek, and God knows how it got in his hair, but it did. Still did a fine job of it though: he kept up with Luke like a pro.

"I'm gonna need some more for this side," Logan said, scraping plaster over another hole in the wall, up in the corner by the ceiling.

Luke was busy doing the same thing, but on the ground. "You shouldn't need more for that side, there was plenty there half an hour ago."

"Doesn't change the fact that I'm out."

"Fine." Luke reached up the ladder and handed Logan another bucket.

"No bickering, boys," Lorelai commanded, then she lowered her voice and turned to Rory. "It's soooo nice to have a couple of spry, broad-shouldered men to carry out our every home-improvement need."

"And then fetch us water from the well and milk from the cows."

"As we wish."

"Carry us around on one of those four-poster couch things."

"We'll be the envy of every girl in New England."

"I call the blonde."

"Dibs on the lumberjack."

Logan was grinning at the whole exchange. "Ever get the feeling we're being auctioned off?" he muttered to Luke.

"I learned to drown it out years ago," he replied gruffly.

"Huh. I gotta pick up on that."

"I can't wait 'till Will gets older," Rory mused. "He can learn the fine art of spackling and various other...nope, I'm out."

"Ugh, _I_ can," Lorelai shuddered. The thought of the whole kid-raising process being over again was way too in-the-future to wrap her mind around just yet. "Of course, you know, at least he'll be able to say 'sissy' by then."

"I don't know; I've kind of gotten used to being called 'fiffy.' It's unique."

Logan climbed down off the ladder and turned to the girls, wiping his hands off on a towel he'd tucked through his belt. "Okay, fiffy, last wall's done."

Luke dropped his spackling-tool-thing on the newspaper and turned around too. "I'd say give it another couple minutes to dry, then we should be good to paint."

"We got the Elmer's microsphere compound, so that cuts way down on the wait time, plus the wall's a pretty high structural grade and it's been taking to it pretty well so far, so..."

"Konnichiwa," Lorelai interrupted.

"I'm sorry?"

"Subtext."

Logan grinned as he caught on. "You're saying, this is all Japanese to you."

Lorelai nodded. "Harajuku."

Logan just laughed, and Luke...well, Luke was used to it, so he just went about cleaning up the spackling stuff. Logan went to the corner of the room and started unrolling one of the big tarps.

There was a question that had to be asked sometime in the next, oh, three minutes, but Luke was reluctant to ask it. Ever the trooper, he did anyway. "_Rory_---the _only_ person I am talking to---have you decided which color you want for the wall and which for the trim?"

"I can't believe you wouldn't let me have the paint chips," Lorelai grumbled. "I can control myself!"

Rory studied the cans again. She'd finally settled on a pretty sky blue and a pale sunflower yellow, nice and gender-neutral, but she could not decide for the life of her which one the majority of the room should be. "Hey, babe?"

"Yeah."

"The yellow or the blue?"

"Not again, Ace. I have no opinion. Whichever one you pick is fine."

"Pick the yellow, pick the yellow!" Lorelai whispered at her, like some kind of sick game-show contestant.

"You're coaching," Luke warned.

"Okay, I guess the...." Rory looked at both the cans one more time. "The yellow. Yep, I'm goin' with the yellow. Blue for the trim."

"Ha!"

"It's not because of _you_."

It was then that a voice came from the doorway, and Rory turned around, followed by her mother. "Okay, we've got the...aaaand, I'm guessing you're not ready for the furniture yet," Jackson realized. He and Zach each held one end of the crib Luke had built, and it did _not_ look light.

"Oh, I'm sorry guys, we haven't even painted yet," Rory replied.

"_We_?" This from Logan, arm-deep in the tarp. Luke was too busy prying off paint-can lids to point out the error.

"_They_ haven't even painted yet." Then, delayed reaction: "Hey, the incubator does not do manual labor."

"Oh, like you'd want to anyway," Logan mock-scoffed.

"Like you'd _let_ me." Rory shot back. It was true; she knew Logan wouldn't so much as let her lift a finger about this room, except for pointing at whatever she wanted to go into it. He was the crazy-protective type, like Luke, and it was sweet, and a warm smile escaped at him when his back was turned.

"Dude, I _told_ you she said three-thirty," Zach said triumphantly---if a little out of breath---bringing her back to the issue here.

Jackson looked perplexed. "I could have _sworn_ I heard one-thirty."

"No way man, I got the ear..."

"Well hurrah for you, I'm so sorry to have questioned the ear."

"It was three-thirty, guys," Lorelai cut in. "But thanks, really---why don't you go drive around the city for a couple hours or something? You know, see the sights? We'll call one of you when we need ya."

"All right," Jackson said, and he and Zach started moving the crib back into the living room. "Hey, maybe there'll be a decent farmers market somewhere..."

"Dude, I am not going to a farm."

Rory leaned in toward her mother once they were gone. "You gave them two different times didn't you?"

"Oh yeah. Totally."

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It was five-thirty on a Wednesday evening, Logan was on his way to Hartford to pick up the curtains they'd ordered for the baby's room, and Rory was typing like crazy. She had a Monday deadline at the Times for this story, and her leave didn't kick in for another three months, so there was still a lot of staying-caught-up to do before then. Which involved finishing this story, hence the typing like crazy.

And then, she was interrupted by a whole _different_ kind of crazy.

Somebody started banging on the door like a maniac. "Rory? Are you in there? _Come_ on Huntzberger, I know you're Sister Maria-ing it in there---be home!"

Whether or not she'd want to admit it in a court of law, Rory knew who that was. Reluctant but concerned, she shut her laptop, got off the couch, and opened the door, and Paris invited herself in.

"Sure, Paris, hi to you too, make yourself at home." Useless, but still. She shut the door.

"I have to talk to you," Paris said shakily. "You've always said that if I need to talk I can come to you; so, I need to talk and I came to you."

Rory was more concerned than annoyed now, and she led Paris to the couch. They sat. "Anything, Paris; what's up?"

"Well, I figured you were in the same situation, so maybe you could, I don't know, shed a little light on how this could possibly have happened...I mean I _know_ how it happened, but I'd expect it from _you_, not me! I'm careful! I read the fine print on the little box! Nobody reads the fine print on the little box, but I did!"

Rory let the perceived insults go: if Paris wasn't insulting somebody either intentionally or unintentionally, she wasn't Paris. "Slow down. What's going on?" She thought she knew, she just wanted to make absolutely sure.

Paris took a deep, shaky breath---she hadn't seen her this freaked since the Harvard rejection. "I'm pregnant."

_Whoa._ "Wow." That was what she'd figured, all right; still, if there was ever a person you would _not_ expect to hear that from, it was Paris Gellar. Sorry: Gellar-_McMaster_---she was also the only person in the world who considered it an anti-feminist insult to drop your maiden name, while at the same time adding the new one as a giant 'in-your-face' to all the _non_-married people.

"This wasn't supposed to _happen_ now," Paris vented. "I haven't finished my residency! I just finished med school!" Having doubled up her course load to cut down on time, naturally. Three years was a record only Paris could set. "I haven't been acclaimed yet! Doyle still eats Apple Jacks straight from the box for God's sake! We can't be parents!"

"Yes, yes, you _can_," Rory assured. "I know you didn't plan for this to happen, _I_ didn't plan to do this right now either, but it's happening, so you just have to learn to deal! It's what you do. You handle curveballs, and this is a curveball," she decided, winging a metaphor as she went along. "Life is throwing you a curveball, and you can either catch it and run with it or you can get hit in the face."

"I do have good hand-eye coordination," Paris said quietly.

"See? There we go! It'll be okay. And just remember I will help you however I can. I'm going through everything you are, just three months sooner is all---I'll be like your guinea pig. By the way, expect some throwing up in the near future." In hindsight she didn't see how that would help much right now, so she kept it moving. "The point is, you're ready, I know you are, and you have nine months to figure out everything you need to know. You and Doyle will make great parents---and you think Logan hasn't had his cereal-from-the-box moments? Not as much as me, but still. That doesn't mean he won't make a great dad. I mean, you've been married since this time last year---"

"We got the anniversary gift by the way; Doyle was supposed to send out the thank-you cards."

"---and you're happy---right?"

Paris was still quiet, but her voice was gaining in confidence, just a little. "Yeah, I guess we're pretty happy."

"So _okay_ then. It's all good, Paris. It'll be okay, I promise."

"Yeah. I guess." Her eyes flitted down to the carpet, then back up to Rory. "Thanks."

They shared a nice hug---quick, because it was Paris, but nice---and there was a moment of silence.

Paris spoke after a while. "I'm kind of surprised Doyle had it in him. Logan I get, that boy's been dying to spread it since Clinton was in office, but Doyle? Not many people would believe that one."

The best response to that, like most things Paris said, was resignation. "You're welcome, Paris," Rory sighed, and she got up to put on some tea.

"Chamomile, if you have it...!"

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**Remember how I said the last chapter was longer than War & Peace? Scratch that, **_**this**_** one is. ^^ I had a lot of familiar characters to work in and a certain amount of time in which to put them, hence the bigfunGIGANTICchapter you all just got to read. (How it went down in my head, Paris and Doyle kind of flaunted the fact that they got engaged a month before Rory and Logan did, and ever-so-slightly resented the fact that they didn't get married until five months **_**after**_** Rogan. ^^ You know how Paris is, never rushes into anything, always has to be the best anyway. It's a vicious cycle. XD ) With a big chapter like this, specific reviews are expecially important! Don't get me wrong, I love any review, but the more you tell me WHAT you like or WHICH PART you liked best, the more I can improve along those lines, so please, share those opinions! Thank you guys for sticking with this and for the positive feedback, I'm glad you're liking it, and the next chapter is coming asap! **

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	6. Ringwald, Anka, & Fillion

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**Hey everybody! Back with another chapter. We're gonna do another time-jump now; we're skipping ahead from November 2010 to February 2011. I've got some big ideas and some big things planned, so read on.... **

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"So how's Rory doing with this whole thing?" Sookie asked. It was a warm day for February, and she and Lorelai were out for a walk around the town to enjoy it, just slow enough not to constitute as excersise.

Lorelai adjusted her grip on Will's stroller to tighten her coat around her; the two-year-old was the master of the wobbly-coffee-table-supported-step, but he wasn't quite up to town-strolling standards just yet. "She's...fine," she said---it was true, after all. "She's..._handling_ it, handling it like Rory---she's Molly Ringwald in 'For Keeps.'"

"Ooooh, is that the one where Jon Cryer...has...and, with the stuff...."

Lorelai was already shaking her head. "No, Sook, that was Pretty In Pink; the point is, she really thinks she's got this whole thing under control."

Sookie was not only the maestra in the kitchen, but at picking up on subtle undertones, too. She quirked her eyebrows up ever-so-slightly. "And you..._don't_ think she's got it all under control?"

"No!" Lorelai sighed. "I mean that's not it, it's not that I think that, it's just that, I don't even _know_ what I think. I guess I just keep waiting for her to freak out."

"Well, she's Rory---she's never been the 'freak out' type."

"I know, I know that, but, this isn't the, 'I got an A minus' kind of freak out or a 'waiting for a job offer' kind of freak out. This is the 'I'm about to be a mom' freak out. But she's not the one freaking out, I am! Is it weird that I'm freaking out that she hasn't freaked out yet? She's perfectly calm."

"Like Molly Ringwald in 'For Keeps,'" Sookie offered, jumping on the Lorelai Analogies train.

"But that's just it; she's _not_ Molly Ringwald. She's Rory. She...works at the New York Times for God's sake, she's been married for, what, a year and a half to a sweet guy who loves her and who I _thoroughly_ have _no_ urge to kill, she's ten years older than I was when I had her...."

"So there you go!" Sookie concluded.

Lorelai was officially no longer on the train. "Huh?"

"...There you go." Less enthusiastic this time.

"There you go _what_? What conclusion was reached there?"

"It...sounded conclusion-y in my head."

There was a quiet moment for a second there, aside from random daily-life noises from around the town, and the girls turned to make their way across the square. "I mean," Lorelai began again, "I should be doing-the-touchdown-dance kind of happy right now. She made it. She _did_ it. She didn't get pregnant at sixteen and drop out of school, she avoided all of the mistakes I made, she graduated from Chilton and Yale and toured the country with Barack Obama and if anybody still uses the word 'wedlock,' her kid's gonna be born in it. She did everything right."

"But...you're _not_ 'doing-the-touchdown-dance' happy." Sookie was valiantly trying to follow, here.

If there was one thing that Lorelai Gilmore-Danes was _not_ good at doing, it was putting an undefineable gut feeling into understandable words, preferably ones in the English language. "Rory's really happy about this, and I'm _really_ happy about this for her. I am! And I've been good; I've been calm and supportive...it's just...I feel like it hasn't _hit_ her yet."

"Ah."

"And I don't know, maybe I'm just being crazy, but it's like a mom thing, you know?"

"I do, I do know..." Agreeing was the most helpful thing to do at the moment, Sookie decided.

"And it might just be me...I mean, my kid's having a kid. What does _that _mean?"

"In most cultures it means you're a grandma."

"_Gah_, no; do _not_ use that word. Grandmothers are old. They knit and bake cookies and...judge."

"Maybe some do, but you don't have to be like that! Start a new trend. Be the 'cool grandma;' make all the other kids jealous."

"And cardigans; don't forget the cardigans."

"Don't you have a cardigan? The cute brown one...?"

"Are you _trying_ to kill me?"

"Sorry." There was another long pause, and in the stroller it sounded like Will was having a spit-bubble contest with himself, but Lorelai glanced down there and he was fine. And then Sookie thought of something. "Is this about Logan?"

Four or five years ago, if you had asked her that question, she would have hemmed and hawwed and eventually given it up that yeah, that was the problem, and couldn't he just fall out of a plane and die really painfully already? But now she looked over at Sookie with an actual, genuine 'of course not' expression. That was the most ridiculous question she'd heard since Kirk asked if he could perform stand-up at the inn. "No! No way! Sookie, he married my daughter; we _like_ him now. God."

"Okay, sheesh, I just thought, you know, you had problems with him in the past, and now she's having his baby, it's a lot more permanent."

"Well _yeah_, of course he wasn't high on my list back when he was gallivanting around with more liquor in him than Spencer Tracy, but again. _Years_ ago. While you're at it Liz Hurley had a problem with Hugh Grant, too." It took her a minute to catch the second part, but she did eventually. "More permanent than marriage?"

"Well...yeah."

Lorelai gave her friend the 'heart-to-heart-conversation' face. This had to be made clear. Especially around a relationship conspiracy theorist. "Sookie. Did I not say he could propose to Rory? Twice, as a matter of fact?"

A nod. "You did."

"Did I not help plan their Richard-and-Emily-funded wedding?"

"You did, because I catered."

"And did I not give a toast at said wedding---completely sober---welcoming him into our family?"

Another nod. "The sobriety was a nice touch."

"And have I ever once exhibited signs of any urge to decapitate him, and have I not spent several _billion_ hours in pleasant-slash-enjoyable conversation with him, have I not trusted him with my son, am I not on better terms with him than I am with my _mother_? All of this indicates a completely positive opinion."

"Okay, okay, I get it, it's not Logan."

"_Thank_ you." _That_ should keep that thought from coming up ever again. Actually, Lorelai had been pleasantly surprised by Logan for the past three or four years now. She'd watched him turn from this partying rich kid into a responsible, trustworthy twenty-nine-year-old with whom Rory was safe and happy. Casually dating her daughter was one thing, but when you prove after three dumpings that you're still not going anywhere and then offer to marry her twice, succeeding the second time, then yeah, you're pretty much permanently okay by Lorelai. In fact, if it wasn't going too far to say it, she really cared about the kid now. And would probably admit that she loved him as a son-in-law without any visible twitching. Turned out Rory picked a winner---one of the few left out there. Then again, Rory was always a great judge of character.

It wasn't him. It was her. Lorelai. Not the 'Rory' edition, but _her_, Lorelai Victoria Gilmore-Danes, that was the problem. She was the one who wasn't ready just yet. She was the one who had the sinking suspicion that Rory was in for a freak-out of her own, just as soon as the 'happy, nesting' thing wore off. She was the one who'd have to get used to the idea of Rory---_her Rory_---being a mom. And she had two months left to do that in.

"So then...?" Sookie prodded. Obviously this conversation wasn't ending without some type of resolution.

"I just worry about her," Lorelai sighed. "She'll be fine. And if and when she freaks out---"

"You'll be the calm one and help her through it," Sookie finished.

"Yes. And until then---"

"_You'll_ be freaking out, and coming up with alternate words for 'grandma.'"

"Exactly." God bless best friends like Sookie.

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Right about now, it was probably good that Will was down for a nap, because that meant that only one of the Danes men had to listen to this conversation. The two-year-old got to be spared while his exhausted, scruffy father was chained to the stove cooking dinner for the psychotic dog. Who, by the way, played dead at the sight of onesies.

"Fat ankles." This came from Lorelai; they were playing 'compare the pregnancies' at the kitchen table.

Rory shook her head. "Nope, I got those too."

"Oh, come on! You're waddling around on two straws while I spent nine months reenacting any movie scene that has _ever_ involved a ball-and-chain."

"Okay, fine, but mine's worse as far as the morning sickness."

"Yeah, you got me there---I bet Logan's used to holding hair back for an entirely different reason..."

"Not to interrupt this very educational conversation---what, what happens if one of you had it worse, do you win?" Luke cut in, stepping aside from the stove a little, "---but does that look rare enough for him...?" He tilted the skillet a bit so Lorelai could see the burger patty for herself. This was a man who cooked these for a _living_, mind you, but this was also for a dog who changed its freakish mind on a daily basis.

"I'd add a little medium to it," Lorelai responded. She took another marshmallow from the bowl in the center of the table before continuing. "You know, I actually had more morning sickness with you than with Will; it could mean it's a girl."

"Really? Is that how it works, more throwing up equals girl?"

A shrug. "How should _I_ know? Of course, I _could_ know, if _you_ know...."

Rory rolled her eyes, but in a nice way. "I told you, I don't know. Logan doesn't know. Santa Claus, Obama, Bill Moyers, the Easter Bunny, all out of the gender loop."

"But he said you _could_ know, right? I mean, the doctor offered to tell you?"

"Yeah, of course."

Lorelai mock-indignantly slammed her marshmallow-hand down on the table. "Then _how can you not know_?"

"I don't _want_ to know; I want to be surprised."

"Well how can you not _want_ to know?"

Rory lifted her chin a bit and responded with her mock-superior face. "I guess I just have more self-control than you do."

Lorelai let out a short laugh---it came out like "Pah!"---and reached for another marshmallow. "Uh, hello, is this the Gazette? Boy, do I have a story for you."

"Hey, so, what do you think of the name Nathan?" Rory asked. After enduring a childhood with her mother she was the master of the swiftly-changed subject.

"As in, Nathan Fillion, Nathan Hale, Nathan's Famous hot dogs Nathan?"

"Right, no Nathan."

"Heyyyyy, wait---are you trying to tell me it's a boy? Is _that_ it?"

"Mom!"

Rory didn't have to say anything more than that; where _she_ was a master subject-changer, Lorelai was a master backpedaler. "Right, right, okay, okay, I get it, you don't know. Consider it dropped. It's on the floor, it's forgotten about, it's decomposing. Hey, speaking of 'mom,' while we're at it---what's this kid supposed to call me?"

"Ohhh, that's right," Rory remembered, "the 'grandma' aversion."

"I was thinking something funky, like...G-ma. G-unit."

"...G-unit?"

"Okay, yeah, it sounded better in my head. What about gram?"

"As in, unit of measurement?"

"You know, it really doesn't have to call me anything. I'm fine with it just calling me Lorelai."

"Your grandchild is _not_ going to call you Lorelai."

"Why not?"

"It's a first-name address. It's distant."

"At least it has nothing to do with hot dogs!"

"Or hip-hop."

Serendipitous creature that he was, Paul Anka came trotting into the kitchen just then, giving Luke his patented 'dude-where's-my-dinner' face. Rolling his eyes, Luke got the yellow bowl down from the cupboard and scraped the hamburger into it, setting it on the floor. Paul Anka no longer had to eat in the dark, just as long as people weren't ogling him while he ate---nobody could say he wasn't adapting. Slightly. "There you go, ya freak, bon apetit. Enjoy the people food."

And the dog wasn't the only one enjoying the people food. Rory took another marshmallow from the center of the table and put it in her own bowl, on top of everything else---the peanut butter, the Fruit Loops, the açaí berries, graham crackers---you name it, it was in there. The whole 'random cravings' thing was in full swing now, and anyone in her life who had any cooking ability---namely Luke and Sookie, not to mention Logan, who was known by name at every takeout restaurant in New England---was getting the brunt of it. Happy to do it, of course. But still.

"God, I'm getting nauseous just watching you," Lorelai said as she stared at the bowl. It was like she was in a trance or something.

"Oh, this from the woman who at five months decided that nacho cheese and cinna-sticks went really really well together," Rory countered. "At least mine's all in one genre."

"What genre, 'sugar high?'"

"I don't know what's with me this week, all I've been wanting is sweet stuff; usually most of my cravings are for vegetables, salad, avocados, those really nice Harry & David pears..."

"You're lucky there's a reason for that, or I'd be testing you for a bump on the head."

"Oooh, hey, you know what would go good with this?" Rory turned her big blue eyes on Luke, who was cleaning up the stove and who was also powerless against the Rory Face. "The best coffee in the whole wide world...."

Luke had seen this coming. He was the closest thing to Gilmore-radar in Stars Hollow. "I already made a fresh pot."

"I _knew_ I smelled something."

"Here." Luke got down two mugs and filled one for each of the girls, then went about cleaning up and acting perfectly normal as they took a sip. It would be coming soon enough---as well as he knew them he kept on trying to get it past them.

Rory was the first to set her mug down. "Decaf---_really_, Luke?"

"Oh, it's _totally_ decaf. Why punish _me_? _I'm_ not pregnant!"

Rory was already out of her chair. Everybody was just going to have to get used to the fact that baby wanted caffeine. "I'll get it; where is it this time, under the sink?"

"No, I think I broke him with that one, it might be behind the pots and pans."

"'Cause God knows we never use those."

"Exactly."

"_All_ right, _that's_ it." Wiping his hands off on a paper towel, Luke abandoned the stove, went over, took Rory by the arm, and led her back to her chair. The girls watched in amusement and prepared for the rant. "You don't need coffee, you don't need marshmallows, you need fruits and vegetables---actual nutritional sutstainance. You need---" here he actually lifted her feet up and set them on the opposite chair, "---to _sit_ down, _relax_, and stop doing whatever it is she did when she had you that made you the caffeine addict you are. I mean, for cryin' out loud, this kid's going to pop out with a _tail_ or something. God knows what hasn't shown up on Will yet; he could have _gills_ for all we know. _Look_ at this---how can you _eat_ this crap? All you need is a vat of chocolate and a purple top hat, and a bunch of those worker squirrels. Everything in here should come with a stomach pump and the Surgeon General's warning. And this morning, I saw you reaching for the top shelf---what is _that_ about?" He didn't give her a window to answer---not that she would have been able to with a straight face. "There will be no reaching. There will be no lifting---and I'm not talking heavy lifting, because I know you know that, I'm talking binders, dinner plates, books with more than two hundred pages. There will be no stair-climbing, no fast walking, no stretching, no extrenuous speaking, no 'but's. Understood?"

Rory nodded at all that, struggling not to giggle. "Yes sir." It had been way too long since she'd had a front-row seat for a Luke Rant, let alone been the subject of one. It was fun. He was just being as crazy-protective of her as he'd been of Lorelai, which was cute; except _now_, Lorelai was giving her the 'ha-ha,-it's-not-me' smirk. Still: that didn't mean she was going to stick to that. Not 'till she joined the convent. "Oooh? How does red velvet cake sound? And tangelos."

Lorelai nodded happily. Luke groaned a "Why do I bother" and went back to the pan.

Reaching into her purse on the back of the chair, Rory pulled out her Sidekick and pressed '1'.

"Put it on speaker, put it on speaker," Lorelai begged. When Luke shot her a look for encouraging this, she shrugged innocently. "What? It's so she won't have to bend her elbow."

The girls waited as patiently as their genes would allow for the Blackberry on the other end to stop ringing. Finally it did. Logan's voice came through the kitchen, slightly more cell-phone-y than in person, and apparently he'd checked the caller ID. "You'd better still be at your mom's, Ace, I don't like you walking around out there."

Luke pointed to the phone lying on the table. "_Thank _you!" With that, he left the kitchen.

"I'm still at mom's," Rory promised, "Luke says hi---"

"Hey Logan!"

"---and mom says hi too...listen, another one _just_ hit me, do you mind?"

Even in his voice, she could hear the smirk. "Place your order now."

"Red velvet cake, tangelos...and oh, Hostess fruit pies."

"Any in particular?"

"Whatever they got."

"All right..." The sound of a piece of paper being unfolded came through the kitchen too, and Rory figured he was going over the list. "So that's the cucumbers, the moose tracks ice cream, the cheese crackers, In Touch Weekly, red velvet cake, tangelos, fruit pie."

"Oh, scratch the crackers."

The sound of a pen now; she could see him wedging the phone between his ear and his shoulder. "And replace with?"

"Uh...green olives, if they got 'em? Where are you?"

"Woodbridge."

Lorelai and Rory looked at each other to make sure neither of them were going deaf. "Sorry, I think the connection sucks...did you say you're in _Woodbridge_?"

Now she didn't have to hear the smirk, she heard him actually laugh, which was more of a dead giveaway. "Yeah, Doose's was out of cucumber and the closest thing I could find to moose tracks was something fudge-like with a picture of a cow on it."

"So you went to Woodbridge?"

"_No_, I went to three _other_ stores all leading further and further away from Stars Hollow and I ended _up_ in Woodbridge."

"You poor baby," she laughed. "I didn't mean you had to go to another _county_."

"It's all good, Ace; they had a Wal-Mart, I'm on my way home right now."

"Okay. See you then."

Rory pressed 'end' on her phone and slipped it back into her purse. She looked at Lorelai with an impressed doe-eyed expression. "He's in Woodbridge."

"Getting ice cream." Lorelai was equally surprised.

"And cucumbers."

"Getting ice cream and cucumbers."

"He went to Woodbridge for ice cream and cucumbers."

Lorelai got up, reached up on top of the fridge, and started to put on a pot of the _real_ coffee. "Behold, the advantages of putting a ring on it."

"Amen."

.

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**XD I love Luke Rants, it was only a matter of time. ^^ The next chapter is tres important, I'm talking MAJOR, so don't stop now! I totally appreciate all the great reviews, thank you you guys, and while I'm on the subject here, PLEASE take a sec and review! I like hearing 'good chapter,' but those of you who get specific and tell me which part you liked best or whatever, that REALLY helps! This story's for you you know! At any rate, the next one's on its way, so get ready....**

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	7. Copperboom

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**All right, here we go...! The date of this is April 17th, 2011. I won't slow you down with a lot of AN chat, just jump in and get reading, 'cause this is a LONG one---it **_**had**_** to be: it all takes place during the same day. Oh, and, enjoy the mood swings. I did. X)**

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Rory was a little frustrated by maternity leave. She was Rory, she needed to work---all she was doing was sitting here and getting fat and watching Ellen and Cool Hand Luke and the Cosby show; couldn't she just submit articles until the baby came? Seriously, how hard was it to sit here on the couch and type, huh? They couldn't just let her do that?

And Logan. That annoying little snit. He was sucking up, that's what he was doing. He was a_lways there_, asking her if she needed anything, bringing her something to drink or eat or read, doing crap like fluffing her pillows---I'm sorry, where did _that_ come from? Twerpy little brown-noser.

"Hey, Ace," she heard, and there he was in the doorway. "You good in there? You need anything?"

See? Like _that_. Freak of nature. "No, hon."

"All right, well, I was gonna get something to drink anyway, lemme freshen that for ya." He came into the room, took her glass of iced tea, and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Well wasn't _that_ sweet? He didn't have to do that. My God, here she was with the kindest most loving caring guy who ever lived, and what had she done to deserve it? Huh? _What_? Great, now she needed a tissue---and Logan had brought her the box an hour ago, it was on the coffee table. Perfect. No, _he_ was perfect, and she was horrible and crappy and undeserving. Sweet, perfect Logan. God, she loved him. He was so beautiful! Weren't there any more tissues? Where were the tissues for the people that needed the tissues?

The patient one heard the new round of sobbing coming from the living room. He came back in with a glass full of fresh ice and the iced tea pitcher. "What's the matter, Ace."

Rory blew her undeserving nose and dropped the tissue in the wastebasket---and would you look at that, Logan had put it there for her. "Nothing, it's nothing."

Logan was fine with that. He understood that. He'd spent the past couple of weeks now in the thick of that, and it was either come to terms with it, or jump out the window. He'd done the whole 'jumping' thing once. The 'chute didn't open. Not the kind of thing you want to repeat.

"You know I'm here if something's bothering you," he reminded her, on the off chance that the sobbing had nothing to do with world hunger or genocide or Keisha Knight-Pulliam.

Rory nodded, her sobbing trickling off into hiccuppy little snuffles. "I'm sorry I'm putting you through all of this," she told him.

"Aw, Rory, look at me." Logan sat down on the edge of the couch. "I don't _mind_. I have no problem dealing with _any_ of this---'cause frankly, you're the one cooking the kid in there, which scientifically was my fault in the first place. If anybody should deal with this it's me. I'm happy to do it."

She was in a very emotionally fragile place right now, so all of that sounded like...like...well, it sounded good. "Really?"

"Promise."

"Awwww, I love you," she gushed, throwing her arms around his neck.

Logan just laughed---there were some things that he could tell she meant even though they were brought on by severe hormonal imbalances and the cruelty of womankind. "I love you too Ace."

He held her for a second, content with the fact that she was content and wasn't biting his head off, but when her breathing hitched and he heard an "Ow" from over his shoulder, he moved back in an instant.

"What, what's wrong?"

Rory looked as shocked as if somebody'd just slapped her. She was holding her stomach now. "Ow," she repeated, once more, with feeling.

Quickly Logan did the math in his head...found out the beginning of August....one, two three four five six seven eight nine.... _Oh, crap_.

He was off the couch, Rory's hand was in his, he helped her up, started toward the door. Just like that. "Okay, just relax, I'm gonna get you to the hospital." He grabbed the bag by the door---and, as a guy, he had no clue what good the bag was gonna do, but she'd said the book said bring a bag, so....

"It's..._now_?"

"I'm pretty sure that's what that is, yeah."

Rory winced. "Mom..."

"Yep, all signs point to 'you're about to be one.'"

"_My_ mom..."

"We'll call her, we'll call her," he promised, and shut the door behind them.

.

.

"...Okay, so, it looks like the nature hike begins at three, so you've got a few hours to kill..."

"We really wanted to go antiquing in the meantime."

"Oh, well _super_, we're lousy with antiques here. Why don't you try Kim's Antiques? It's just off the square, you can't miss it, just go---"

"Lorelai...!"

Lorelai stopped mid-schpiel, wanting to strangle the pleasantry-faking French-accented voice she'd just heard. She turned her head, and sure enough, he was standing there in the doorway of the Dragonfly's library, where she was, with that smug look all over his face. Being a nuisance just made his day. "Uh, would you excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Todopolous? I just have a...thing...over here...be right back."

Lorelai flashed them a polite smile before striding over past His Annoyingness and toward the reception desk. He followed, naturally. "_What_, Michel?"

Michel stayed as detatched and mildly amused as ever. "I just thought you would like to know that you just got a phone call. Personally I could not care any less than I do at this moment, but my job description demands that I play Benson to you people, therefore I am delivering your message."

Lorelai was in focusing mode now, totally at Michel's mercy, which he'd probably gloat about later, by the way. It was zero hour, here---any phone call could be _it_. "What message, who was it, was it Rory?"

The Frenchman looked up and to the side as if he were actually thinking about it. "No," he replied, looking back at Lorelai---

"Oh, good."

"--it was a boy, he sounded vaguely familiar, I couldn't pick him out of a lineup. He sounded rather frantic, so I assumed it was urgent, though he wasn't having hysterics if that is any indication for you."

"Oh, wow. Oh, boy."

"Yes, a boy, that is what I said, my God, you are slow today."

She didn't have time for this. "Michel, that's Logan---Rory's probably in labor. What did he say, where are they? Does he have his phone? Are they there now? Did they call Luke?"

"Relax," Michel droned, not so much in a comforting way but to get her to stop talking. "He was only good for the headlines, I got most of the details, though I did not ask for them." He took a sticky note from the desk and read off the contents. "They were on their way to the New York Presbyterian hospital, left ten minutes ago, should be there in another ten, something about seven minutes apart.... I'm assuming that yes, he had his cell phone with him, either that or his telepathy has drastically improved, I do not know if they have contacted the flannel man, and now you owe me my ten in addition to my lunch break."

Handing her the sticky note with a tight little smile and a pleasant "Good luck," Michel walked off to God knows where, and Lorelai whipped out her phone and pressed '4.'

"Hi. You're on your way? So am I. Yeah; I just have to get Luke. We'll be there. Bye."

.

.

"Oh, hiya, doll," Babette greeted as soon as Lorelai came tearing into the diner. She and Morey had Will in a high chair at the table with them. "I hope it's okay, we figured while we were watchin' him for ya we'd bring the little tiger in to see his papa. Plus, Morey doesn't really cook, try as he might, God bless 'im---"

"Yeah yeah, Babette, it's fine. Luke! Luke!"

"What's the matter sugar?"

Distracted, Lorelai barely turned from her post at the counter. "Can you keep him overnight, Babette? You know where I keep the key, his stuff's all in his diaper bag in the foyer, Paul Anka should be fed but if he gets hungry the stuff's under the sink.... Luke!"

"Well, sure, honey, I---"

Luke came out from the back room then, and once he saw her he made a beeline straight for Lorelai. "What, what's going on?"

"It's Rory, she's in labor."

Luke's eyes went wide. "What? Rory's---"

She nodded. "I just got off the phone with Logan. They're at New York Presbyterian."

Immediately Luke went for his keys. "Kitchen's closed!" he yelled, startling eveybody in the place. "Last one out lock up!"

"Rory's havin' her baby? My God!" Babette hollered.

"Your Jeep or the truck?"

"The truck, the truck, Gypsy's got the Jeep." Luke was already out the door, and Lorelai was on his heels. She stopped at the table to drop a kiss on top of Will's head, and then she was on her way. "Bye hon, mommy'll be back! Thanks Babette!"

"No problem, sugar!" Babette called after her. When they were gone, she turned to Morey. "You take the li'l slugger back to our place, okay babe? I gotta find Patty."

Morey's reaction was to stab contentedly at his waffles. "Okay."

.

.

.

"Rory? Rory! Come on, where are you---Rory!"

Luke wanted to be there just as much as she did, but even _he_ was having trouble keeping up with Lorelai. "Stop that, you sound like you're off your meds."

"I'm trying to find my daughter!"

"Well you're not gonna find her by yelling her name in every hallway. She's probably in some room somewhere."

"Well how would you suggest doing it then?"

"Did _asking_ somebody ever occur to you?"

"They won't know where she is if it's not their floor."

"Did you call Logan?"

"He won't pick up, they could kick him out, it's a hospital!"

"Well there's got to be something better than---"

"Lorelai!"

Both of them turned, and a familiar blonde was coming at them from down the hall---not Logan, but the _other_ Huntzberger they didn't want to kill. And the list ended there.

Lorelai met her with a quick hug and a panicky version of the 'mom' face. "Honor, I didn't think you'd be coming!"

"And miss being an aunt? He wishes," she replied with an eye-roll, referring to her brother. "Come on, they're the next hall over."

"Ah, bless you."

"Okay, I guess _that_ would be one way to do it," Luke muttered, trailing behind Honor and Lorelai.

They followed the big boxy hallway around a corner and past a bunch more rooms that they couldn't have cared any less about, and then Honor stopped and pointed to Room 108. "They're in there, and I'm gonna go get some coffee, so just go on in."

"Thanks, Honor." Lorelai was already through the door, and Luke caught it and slipped in behind her.

"Mom!" It was one of those waiting-to-be-ready-to-deliver rooms, and Rory was in the bed, Logan in the chair on the left of it.

"You guys made good time."

"Yeah, well, Luke ran over an old lady getting here," Lorelai cracked.

"I did not."

"You're right. I'm kidding. I hope." Lorelai pulled up one of those little metal chairs they had in there and parked herself next to the bed on the other side. "So, fill me in, how goes it, mommy?"

"It's going okay," Rory admitted. "I mean, the whole 'excruciating pain' thing really sucks---" She still hadn't let go of Logan's hand yet, and she was kind of pale to back it up, "---but in between that I'm really okay. And you were right, the ice chips are completely useless."

"Ah ha, you pelt anyone yet?"

"I'm saving that for the really big ones."

"How long ya got, did they say?"

Luke sensed that a mother-daughter moment of privacy was forthcoming, and nobody understood the Lorelai-Rory bond better than he did. "Hey, Logan, why don't you and I go help your sister with the coffee?"

Logan caught on, but he stood up reluctantly. "You gonna be okay Ace?"

"Yeah, go, go."

"Okay, but I'm just gonna be down the hall, so if you need me I can be right back."

"Yeah yeah, we get it, Marvin Gaye, ain't no mountain high enough. Go ahead, I've got her," Lorelai assured.

Logan smiled, and gave Rory a kiss on the forehead. "Back in a bit."

Luke took him by the shoulder once they were headed for the door. "Okay, walk fast and don't look at anybody." He still hated hospitals.

Once the boys were gone, Rory went back to her mother's question from before. "I'm only at about five right now, so she said it could be another few hours. Of course, she said that about the chick across the hall, too, and she just got wheeled outta there like ten minutes ago, so, how should I know."

Lorelai smiled, patting her daughters hand. "So...you ready to do this? After today, you're in the mom club from here on out, kid."

Rory smiled too, and she almost answered, except that it hit her like a sack of potatoes. The smile plummeted about as fast as her stomach, and suddenly the whole room seemed very, very small. "N...no!"

Lorelai must have missed the starting shot or something. "Rory?"

"No! I'm not ready to be a _mom_!" It was full-on, shaky-voiced, big-picture freak-out time here. "No mom club! No soccer practice! No carpool! I can't do that!"

"Whoa, hey, relax---this is _your_ kid we're talking about; it won't have any athletic capabilities."

"Do _not_ try to lighten the mood!"

"Sorry."

"I mean...I'm going to spend eighteen years raising somebody, who's gonna depend on me and need me to feed it and clothe it and not screw it up to the point where it needs psychoanalysis! I don't know how to _do_ that! I can't be having a baby! I'm not a mother!"

"Well hon, it's a little late---what are you gonna do, have 'em put it back?"

"_You_ are a mother, _I_ am not a mother. You know what to do to get it to sleep, you know how to do whatever it takes to make sure it has everything it needs, you know how to...take a...I don't know, a sock or something, and make it into a game that can get it to stop crying...."

"Whoa, whoa whoa, Rory, Rory, listen to me," Lorelai interrupted. Rory cut off the rant and managed to look at her mother. "This is crazy, okay? You've been studying this stuff for nine months now; you know how to do everything backwards and forwards! The sock thing, I can show you. The sleep thing...well, there's no one way for that, but you'll get it. And the doing whatever it takes thing? I know that you are gonna do _whatever _it takes to make sure this baby has everything. You are a fantastic, kid, Rory, and I _know_ you're gonna be a fantastic mom. There has never been anything you've tried that you haven't conquered. Plus, you've got Logan, remember Logan, he's here for you and he's gonna be a great dad. And Luke, and your grandparents, and the whole town...and you've always, _always_, got me. You've got so much more support than I ever had, kid; you've got the ability to do this on your own and you'll never even have to. You'll do so much better that I ever could."

Rory was starting to calm down now. She glanced down at the scratchy wool blanket, then back up at Lorelai, and blue eyes met blue eyes with more feeling than the English language could even convey. "Nobody could ever do it better than you," she said quietly.

A gentle smile came over Lorelai's face. "Well. Then you've got a lot to live up to, don't you."

"I guess I do." A long pause. "Thanks mom."

Lorelai leaned toward her daughter and wrapped her in a hug. "You're ready, kid," she whispered, and something in her could have sworn she was talking to them both.

.

.

For possibly the first time in recorded history, Lorelai was showing no urge to even touch her coffee. She and Luke were standing outside of Room 108, it had been three hours, Honor was in the parking lot with a cigarette making phone calls, and Rory was in there with Logan, still waiting.

"Hey," Luke said quietly.

Lorelai looked up. "Yeah?"

"You doin' okay?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she sighed. "I'm just nervous."

Luke smiled then, and held an arm out to her. "C'mere." Lorelai let him hold her. "If it makes you feel any better I'm almost as much of a wreck as you are," he supplied.

"Yeah? It kind of does."

She barely got the chance to smile back up at him when a shrill voice cut its demands through the building. "I am Emily Gilmore, and if you don't tell me _exactly_ where my granddaughter is at _exactly_ this minute, I'll sue this hack hospital for every penny it's worth and the closest thing you'll have to a job will be handing out sandwiches at the Y.M.C.A!"

Luke and Lorelai traded that 'uh-oh' look. "I'm...gonna go check on Will," Luke decided, pulling out his cell phone and heading for the parking lot.

"Uh, yeah, good idea." Lorelai tore in the direction of the voice---which, by the way, was now 'requesting' to "speak to your supervisor"---and two corners, a desk and a ticked-off receptionist later, she found it.

"Mom!"

Emily turned. "_There_ you are, Lorelai. Don't you answer your phone anymore?"

"It's a hospital, mom, they interfere with the equipment."

"Honestly, Lorelai, you don't think I _know_ that? I'm a grown woman, I've been in a hospital before."

"But---you_ just said_---"

"Where's Rory?"

_Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown._ "They're in 108, it's over there. Where's dad?"

"Oh, your father spotted one of those archaic newspaper dispensers on the way in, he's trying to get it to work. Apparently it ate his change and wouldn't give him a paper." Emily had that look on again, like, 'how can I _possibly_ be expected to deal with all the things I do in such a patient manner, yet somehow I do anyway.' It must be fun in delusion-world. "So, did we miss anything? How is she? I swear, if I miss one more urgent phone call because of Constance Betterton and her insufferable doubles' tennis which she _insists_ on playing at the club even though there's a _perfectly_ good court on her property, God knows w_hat_ I'll do."

Yes, because _tennis_ was the problem here, not the barking at receptionists or feeling entitled to the innerworkings of a hospital; those were just footnotes. "Logan's sister Honor is here, she was in the city so she beat us by like half an hour; Luke is here but he's checking on the sitter; Logan's in there with Rory and I _think_ Colin and Finn are on their way to help run errands, but, y'know, that could just be folklore."

"Who are they?" Emily wanted to know.

"Logan and Rory's friends, mom."

Nothing but a blank stare.

"The Life & Death Brigade? You've met them like five times."

The stare.

"They were in the wedding?"

Still nothing.

"You know what, forget it." Lorelai took a deep breath to prevent from killing anybody before she continued. "Anyway, Sookie knows, Michel knows, and Babette knows so I'm assuming the rest of Stars Hollow knows, plus we're here, and April and Paris and Lane the rest of North America send their love. I think she's covered, mom."

"What about Christopher?"

Ah. Leave it to Emily to go there. "We called him; it went to voicemail but I'm sure he'll show up when he gets it."

That seemed to satisfy her for now; or leastwise, it _had_ to, because the conversation was thankfully brought to a halt when Logan appeared beside them. "Emily, hi," was his distracted greeting.

Lorelai actually did a double-take when she saw him standing there, and she took a good look at him. It was harder to see five-'o-clock shadow when it was blonde, but either way, it was way past five-'o-clock; he was at more like 10 p.m. by now. The poor kid had dark circles under his eyes that should have had 'Original Smiths Album $8.99' stamped on them, and he seemed to have completely lost the ability to stand still without fidgeting. He looked like he was about to crash if the dealer didn't make good on the product.

Lorelai sensed that the 'mom' thing was going to be needed in more than one place today. "Good, mom, why don't you go see Rory; I'll point the way to dad when he gets here," she suggested.

Emily gave one precise nod. "All right---Room 108, you said?" She enunciated the numbers specifically.

"Yep; it's right around that corner."

Once the Joan Crawford of Connecticut was safely down the hall, Lorelai turned to the kid with a knowing half-smirk. "So how ya holdin' up?"

Logan just kind of shrugged halfway, and kept looking around the hallway.

"Logan." Lorelai waved, and she spoke just a little louder this time. "Hi. Logan! I'm clearin' the runway over here."

"What?" He finally snapped to attention, then seemed to realize he'd been in space for the last thirty seconds. "Oh, God, sorry. Yeah." Lorelai waited for him to crack that smirk he usually did, or offer some kind of unneccesary explanation, but he didn't do either. _Okay, Logan's not here right now, please leave a message after the spaz-out._

Yeah, it was talk time. Lorelai grabbed Logan's sleeve and led him to the side of the hallway where gurneys and doctors and crap weren't whisking by. "Hey, Michael J. Fox, what's with the zombie-ness, huh?"

Nine months, nine months of takeout and craving-runs and spackling and painting and cribs and books and blue or yellow, yes or no, and being patient and picking up curtains and being the calm one, nine months of that, and Logan was cracked. "I, uh...I think I'm freaking out."

"Yeah, no kidding." Lorelai just smiled and shook her head---she was all prepared to have the same talk she'd had with Rory, more or less---after all, if there was ever a day for it... "Look, I know it seems like this big impossible thing right now, but _trust_ me, Logan, you'll make a great dad."

"Huh?" It took him a minute, but he got where she was going. "Oh, no, that's...no, Lorelai, I'm _ready_ for that. The whole four-'o-clock feeding, stroller, pediatrician, daycare thing, I'm not worried about that. I know Rory can handle it and I'm gonna be the best dad I know how to be."

"Oh." Well. _That_ took Lorelai back a second. She was expecting a full-on Jack Butler meltdown, so it was a releif not to deal with that, but... "So then, what's with the panic?"

"I guess..._getting_ there. I don't know what I'm doing in there, Lorelai, and Rory's in this Final Destination kind of pain and I can't do anything, and I'm gonna be in there with her. What if something goes wrong? I---"

"Wow."

"I know, it's stupid."

"No, no, it's _not_ stupid." The way Lorelai said that made Logan actually stand still and look at her. "You are something, you know that?"

"...Something like...'run Forrest run' kind of something?"

"No. Something as in, you've been so helpful all this time, you're about to be a dad and instead of freaking out about that, all you can think about is Rory and the baby being okay. In fact I think it's safe to say I have never been more impressed by you than I am right now."

Logan didn't quite know how to take that. "Wow...thank you."

"We're all worried," Lorelai assured him, "but no more than would be normal for this kind of thing. Everything's going to go just fine, and when you get in there they'll talk you through it, you'll see, and before you know it it's over, and the little thing's here. And hey," she added more quietly, and Logan looked right at her again. "You are _not _your dad."

Finally Logan smiled---he knew what she meant by that and how much she meant it. "Thank you, Lorelai," he said, just as quietly.

"Yeah, well, I'm a human sedative today. Come on, we gotta hug it out, it's in the manual I think."

He laughed, and there was just time for a quick hug before Luke showed up, having just gotten back from the parking lot. "Guys! It's time; they're taking Rory right now!"

They traded an alarmed look. "What?"

"Yeah, now!"

Without another word, all three of them ran---yes, Lorelai _actually ran_---back to Room 108. Emily was there too, and Richard had found his way up, but given the circumstances they saved the round of greetings for another time. Two nurses were in the middle of turning the temp bed into a gurney.

"Ace!" Logan made his way to his rightful place in the hand-crushing vicinity.

"Owww, ow ow ow ow ow ow ow OW!" Rory cried. Logan stroked her hair back, but he couldn't do much else, other than let her squeeze the life out of his hand to the point where it would never be useful ever ever again.

The nurses were probably the only calm ones there. "Another contraction?" she said in a nasally voice.

"_No_, huh-uh, I'm just rehearsing a _play_! You should hear me do Macbeth!"

"Gee, where have I seen this before. Like mother like daughter." Emily muttered.

"Just breathe, Ace."

"Hey, _here's_ an idea: why don't we switch? _I'll_ do the breathing and _you_ do the pushing a _canteloupe_ out of your body, okay?! Anybody else like that plan?"

"Actually I'd kind of like to see that," Lorelai tried, ever the mood-lightener. Judging by the glares from Rory, Emily, Luke and the nurses, it didn't work much. "Right. Bad time."

The nurses were prepping to roll now, and everybody else but Logan filed to the back; Lorelai, Emily, Luke and Richard, more or less clumped in that order. The whole procession started into the hallway and wheeled toward the big room, and one of the nurses spoke up with: "Almost there, honey."

"Oh; _that's_ a comforting thought! I'm _almost_ out of this sucky, crappy pain, just not _yet_! _That_ still counts, right?! Hey, while I'm reenacting Alien in there why don't we strap you on one of those medeival torture racks and just go to town, huh? I think that might help!"

"No, I don't think so."

"Why am I never wearing the proper _shoes_ for this?" Richard complained from the back.

"Or waterlogging! Yeah! Big fun there! Or hey, can I kick you? That'd do the trick!"

"No, you can not kick me."

"Then there better be one of those giant punching bags in there because I really need to do something!"

"Whoa, it's like watching a crystal ball to the past," Lorelai whispered.

Luckily, one thing was different from twenty-six years ago: _this_ Lorelai wasn't going in alone. "I'm right here Ace, breathe, I'm right here, I gotcha."

They were at the big doors now, and the second nurse barked, "I need everybody but the father to stop here!"

The venomous sarcasm was gone from her now, and Rory reached back, grabbed Lorelai's hand for just the briefest second, and then they were pushing her through the doors. "Mom...!"

Lorelai knew what she meant. "I love you too, kid."

"Good luck!" Luke added.

Emily nodded, and even though the doors were already closed, she called, "We'll be here when you're done!" Richard was too busy shoe-obsessing to chime in, but at least he was there. They all were. That was enough.

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"It's a girl." That's what Logan had told everybody when he'd come out of the delivery room three hours ago, exhausted, grinning ear-to-ear, in the scrubs and everything, and they'd all five stood up and looked at him like the sole good-news bearer on the planet. "It's a girl." Rory was still trying to wrap her head around that, even now, as she was alone--for the most part---in her hospital room, holding the tiny little pink baby in her arms. She had a girl. A little, baby girl. It was a girl.

"Hi," she whispered softly. The jury was out on whether the baby could understand any of this yet---she'd read a lot of books, and they all seemed to tell her something different---but Rory knew that at the very least, it would know its mother's voice. "Hi baby. I'm your mom. I'm your Lorelai. Yeah, that's right. I'm your Lorelai."

People always read about or hear about how, when you have a baby, you love them so much from the second you see them that everything else seems...small. Rory knew how true that was now. She hadn't been able to stop smiling that soft smile at her baby girl since they'd handed her to her.

"Hey. It's nice to finally be out of there, isn't it? I mean, I know I never like it when _I_ have to get up in the morning, so I can understand if it's not what you expected. But it's nice to see you. You're here. And _trust_ me, we've been waiting for you a _long_ time. Just ask...well, everybody. You know, once you've got that whole 'talking' thing down. There's your daddy, he's amazing, you'll like him; and there's your Grampa Luke, who's kind of like a Werther's: hard on the outside, soft on the inside, you know. And your Gramma Lorelai, she's the coolest. I know you'll love her. Everybody does. We've all been waiting for you to get here, yeah, we have. But...don't grow up too fast, okay? And I promise, no matter what the big guy with the bowtie says, you don't have to go to Yale if you don't want to."

The baby yawned a tiny little yawn, and Rory smiled all the wider. "You're sleepy, huh? Yeah, mommy's kinda sleepy too. It's been a long day for everybody." Rory was just about to press the call button for a nurse to come put the baby down so they could both get some rest, but just then she saw Logan walking right past the door to her room.

"Huh. I guess your daddy's back from Uncle Colin and Uncle Finn." She craned her neck to try and see where he was going---come to think of it, it looked like he saw somebody.

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Logan _was_ on his way back from Colin and Finn. They'd showed up two-and-a-half-hours after the baby was born---thank Manhattan traffic, according to Colin---with a standing offer to take care of anything that needed doing that the family didn't want to leave to do. They were quirky, but they were decent guys and good friends, and he'd sent them with the keys to their apartment and a list of stuff to bring back with them. Chances are there'd be balloons and some kind of floral arrangement involved too, that is, after Finn hit on every passing nurse on their way out.

He'd been on his way back to visit Rory and the baby, but something had stopped him. Something tall and sinister, and it was waiting for him at the end of the hall.

Logan went right past the door. He stopped in front of him. "Dad."

Mitchum wasn't here as the proud grandfather he should have been. He was too busy being this generation's Straub, unaware that his son wasn't interested in playing Christopher. "Congratulations, Logan."

"So that's what this is?" Logan wouldn't buy it, and he gave his father a pained look, knowing it wasn't true. "That's really all you came to say to me?"

"_No_, it's not all I came to say to you," Mitchum growled, his voice low but harsh. "If you wanted to play around with that nameless job and that miniscule apartment before, that was fine, then, Logan, but what are you going to do _now_, huh? I am never _not_ disappointed in you anymore."

"You know, I don't think that's _ever_ gonna change, is it? So why don't you take your opinions back to some terrified colleague who wants to hear it."

"_Don't you give me that_!" Mitchum boomed all of a sudden, loud for all to hear. "_If you choose not to grow up and accept responsibility_---

"They're trying to sleep in there!"

"---_then THAT'S not my problem, but you are NOT going to raise this child in the city! You'll get a decent house outside Manhattan, you'll get a nanny, you'll get a maid, you'll get a REAL job_."

"_I HAVE a real job_," Logan roared back, and the floors shook like rolling thunder. "_And who are you to come in here and tell me how to live MY life, how to raise MY daughter_?"

"_I'm your FATHER, that's who!_"

"_Yeah, it's unfortunate, isn't it_."

"_Don't backtalk me, son, I've lived a lot longer than you, I know what it's like in the real world_."

"_I'm twenty-nine, dad! I'm an adult now! You see those two in the room there? That's MY wife and kid. You have no say in this_---"

"_I have all the say in this I want to have_."

"---_and if you can just accept that and be happy for me for once in your sorry elitist life, then fine, I'm right here. But you will NOT walk in here and tell me what I will and won't do. This is up to me and Rory and the list ends there, so keep your houses, keep your maids, and don't you come into this hospital and ruin this day for me! That's how it is, and unless you can accept that just stay away and SHUT UP_!"

Mitchum stood there for just a moment longer, seething, neck red, eyes cold. He didn't know what to make of his authority being challenged by his own son, not to this degree, and he didn't _want_ to know. Finally, he turned without a word, black trench coat swishing behind him, and stalked away toward the elevator.

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Drained in all ways possible, really starting to understand the genetic Gilmore need for coffee, Logan walked into the room. "Hey," he said quietly, and he took a seat on the edge of the bed.

Rory had heard everything. The _Germans_ had probably heard everything. She knew how he had to be feeling right now, or at least she had a mental picture of it, and it wasn't looking good. "So...that was your dad."

Logan exhaled. "Yeah."

"Loud."

"Yeah."

"Are you...okay? I want to thank you...for...everything you said to him. About us. About the baby."

He shrugged; it wasn't like his dad had ever really cared. He wasn't like him. "Yeah, I'm okay. I don't want you to worry about that, or him, or anything he said. None of it matters." He took a deep breath, since he hadn't in about ten minutes, and then said, "Hey. Did I tell you how proud I am of you today?" The grin was starting to come back to his face. "You did _great_ in there, Ace."

Rory smiled back at him. "I love you, Logan." Everything she needed was right here. Somehow the look in her eyes made that known, so much better than words would have.

Both their eyes fell on the little sleeper in Rory's arms. Logan was the first one to break the silence. "So, what are we gonna call this little girl, huh?"

Rory looked up at him, and he looked back. "I think I finally got it."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

She looked at the baby, and she tried the name on, and it fit, just like that. "Lorelai Emily Huntzberger."

Logan smiled. "I like that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And I have a feeling so will everybody else."

"We'll call her 'Ellie' for short."

"I like that too."

"You're easy to please, aren't you?"

"It doesn't take much today." Logan moved closer, and he kissed her, and Mitchum couldn't do anything about that either. When he finally stood up, it was reluctantly. "Get some sleep, Ace, you deserve it."

"Where are you going?"

The smirk was back. "I figured I'd go tell the sheep that the wolf is gone."

"Yeah. Good plan."

"You want me to take her?"

"Yes please."

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**WHEW, was that a LOT to write! (And, again, if somebody else out there thought that Ellie would be a good name for their daughter, I'm sorry, I am NOT stealing anybody's work, it's a common idea.) This took me FOREVER so PLEASE, PLEASE, review, and I'd love to hear something more than "good chapter more please," like, for instance, WHAT you liked, your favorite part, etc. THANK YOU to those of you who've already been doing that; it's eternally appreciated. Off to work on the next chapter, review review review! 3**

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	8. The Party's Over

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**Wow, I really want to thank everybody for the excellent reviews! Especially from you guys who took the time to get a little---or a lot---specific: you have NO idea how great it is for me to read those. Totally makes my day. So thank you!!! 3 XD Speaking of days, this chapter takes place about three of them after "Copperboom," so, enjoy! **

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The whole thing had been Luke's idea; "Hey, instead of heading back to Manhattan right away, why don't you two bring Ellie back to Stars Hollow for a couple days?" It had sounded good at the time. That way, the baby could get a chance to meet everybody---or, more correctly, everybody would get a chance to meet _her_. But Lorelai and Rory's agreement with the idea which led to Logan's agreement with the idea had led to Logan saying, "Hey, guys, would you mind bringing some stuff in from the city?" Which was where Colin and Finn were right now, in a black Mercedes, trying to decide if "turn at the giant chicken" was a joke or not. Apparently it wasn't.

"And, I've lost sight of the Porsche, repeat, I've lost sight of the Porsche," Finn reported, craning his head out the window.

Colin had been dealing with this kind of incessant rambling since Hartford---actually, since New York, but Finn was getting restless---and he made the neccesary turn at the rooster. "Yes, you know what---that's exactly it. You've caught on to Logan's master plan to give us false directions and then abandon us in Mayberry while they escape with the baby to Costa Rica. Congratulations."

"Don't toy with me, you know I have a low threshold for abandonment humor."

"You have a low threshold for _everything_."

Finn pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and thumbed through his address book, all while shooting Colin a very mature "I am rubber, you are glue." Once he got down to the 'r's---Robert, Rory, Rosemary---he pressed 'send' on the second one and waited for the other end to pick up.

There was a click. "Yes, Finn, I saw the rooster. It's my town; the rooster and I go way back."

"Not that, love. Are you sure we're on the right road?"

"Did you pass Miss Patty's Dance Studio?" came Rory's voice.

Finn perked up. "Dancers?"

With an eye-roll, Colin directed his voice toward the phone. "Not yet..."

"Okay, then just keep going until you---wait a second." Then, muffled in the background; "Didn't you give them directions?"

"_Yeah_, I gave them directions. Follow the interstate from Hartford, turn at the chicken, hit Peach, 'nother turn and there you go." Logan's voice.

"It's a rooster."

"Fine, the rooster---turn at the freakishly large game fowl, does that cover it?"

"Eyes on the road, quippy." Rory brought the phone back to her ear. "Just follow the directions, guys!"

"He doesn't _trust_ the directions," Colin told her, snatching the phone, putting it on speaker and handing it back.

"Well aren't you the one driving?"

"Yes, thank God. He's got a serious problem with authority."

"Always popular with the ladies," Finn added.

"And he's delusional."

"Just because I'm delusional doesn't mean I'm not right."

"You're on the right track, just follow the little piece of paper and we'll see you when you get there," Rory said, and she snapped her Sidekick shut. Logan was at the wheel, but he would have had to have been at the wheel of the _Titanic_ somewhere for her to miss the grin he was sucking at hiding right now. "Quick question," Rory asked. "Back in school, you first started hanging out with them because...?"

"Tryin' to re-create the Rat Pack," Logan replied.

"_That_ is not the Rat Pack. That's not even the Brat Pack. It's the Frat Pack."

"Aw, now you're just thinking up things that rhyme with 'rat.' Once you get to 'Hat Pack' I'm takin' points off."

Rory wasn't even really paying attention. She was a little busy turning completely around in her seat and leaning over the backrest.

Logan managed to catch this without taking his eyes off the road---he would've had to have been blind _not_ to; it looked like she was trying to escape out the back window. "Sit _down_; you're gonna break your neck."

"I'm just checking on her," Rory defended, peering into the car seat. Ellie was still sound asleep---she was already a very good baby when it came to car travel. Snoozed right through it like Mel Brooks at the Oscars.

"She's _fine_, Ace, now turn around."

"In a second."

"You're gonna get me pulled over."

"It's Stars Hollow---by _who_, Officer Ruskin with the short-shorts and the ten-speed bike?"

"Far be it from me to tempt short-shorts Ruskin."

Logan hit the brake just then---not hard, but suddenly enough to jar Rory into the backrest---and she had to spaz out and grab the window to avoid going headfirst into the backseat. "Hey!" With the car not moving, she was able to flip herself around and slide back into her seat. "You did that on purpose!"

"I did _not_. Red light." he pointed up through the windsheild to the town's one and only traffic light, which was well known to hate everybody with a car. Why else would it take six _thousand_ years to turn green on a street that hadn't had an accident since Kirk? The red finally disappeared, he hit the gas again, and the car rolled forward. "_Now_ do you believe me?"

"Believe what, that you thought it'd be funny to patent the vehicular somersault?"

"Maybe I did, but at least it got you to sit down."

"What are you gonna do if I ever decide to...go rock-climbing or something? Snip the bungee cord?"

"Oh, like you'd ever go rock-climbing."

"I could go roc---"

They could have kept going on this for an hour, but Rory stopped talking mid-sentence as they pulled into Lorelai's driveway. All that came out of her was, "Oh, my _God_; did you know about this?"

"No, not a clue!"

What _probably _had something to do with their reaction was the fact that a crowd of people were standing in Lorelai's front yard, and a few of them toward the front were holding up a big yellow banner that said 'WELCOME, BABY GIRL GILMORE' in loopy pink letters. Of course, the 'Gilmore' had been crossed out with paint with the word 'Huntzberger' added above it, but it was the thought that counted.

With a big, appreciative smile, Rory bounded out of the car, opened the back door and lifted out her baby daughter; Logan went around to the trunk and got her diaper bag.

"Surprise!" everyone whispered, careful not to wake her. As soon as Rory was among them with the baby, one big, hushed "Awwwwwww" filled the yard.

"Rory, sweetie, she's _gorgeous_," Patty gushed, getting a closer look.

"Thank you---but you guys didn't have to do all _this_."

"Oh, what are you _talkin_' about, _sure_ we did, honey!"

"All though technically I'm obligated to remind you people that a gathering of this many outside a private residence requires a permit that we do not have," Taylor interjected.

"Oh, shove it, Taylor honey, look how cute the little doll is." Babette, never soft-spoken.

Taylor just rolled his eyes, gave a congratulatory nod to an entertained Rory and Logan, and disappeared into the crowd, which included Morey, Gypsy, Andrew, Sookie and Jackson, Lane and Zach, Liz and TJ, Doula, and Lulu---plus Kirk, who was the next to come forward.

"I see you went with the 'traditional' birthing method," he pointed out, using air-quotes around 'traditional.'

Logan would probably never _not_ be amused by this town, and it showed all over his face. "Yeah, we did...not that we didn't consider your offer, Kirk, but, y'know, the Pres was closer." Using the nickname he and Rory'd been using for New York Presbyterian, not realizing it would go over anybody else's heads. Or in Kirk's case, not be caught at all.

"No hard feelings--turns out I didn't pass that midwife exam. Apparently they frown upon midwifing as a career if you're not female. Who knew. Anyway, I wanted to express my apologies for the signage error, there...I'd forgotten you'd changed your name until it was already printed, and they charge extra for stuff like that."

Rory shook her head. "Oh, it's no problem, Kirk."

Before anything else about banners or midwives or astronauts or shellfish could come out of the starnge one's mouth, the Mercedes rolled into the driveway behind them, and Colin and Finn got out and took the whole scene in.

"Rory, love, you are a devious one. I had no idea 'bring the bassinet' was code for 'surprise party.' I'm flattered. Very misleading sign, though---I'm certainly no baby girl, and Logan, I love you man, but I have _no_ intentions of taking your name. I'm just not cut out to be a Huntzberger."

Colin was already opening the trunk. "_Please_, somebody stop him."

"Yeah, well, many have tried, many have failed," Logan grinned.

"Finn, I believe this little gathering is for that little pink thing Rory's holding," Colin clarified. "You know---the one with the higher I.Q. and the longer attention span."

Finn spent about six seconds being offended at that---ironic---before he spotted Lulu about ten feet away eating hummus on a carrot stick, and a look of patented Finn determination crossed his face. "Don't wait up for me." Forgetting all about the cargo, he started off across the lawn.

"No no, I've got it. By all means," Colin deadpanned, as if Finn were still standing there.

Rory looked concerned and like she wished she had a camera at the same time. "Should I tell him Lulu's in a relationship?"

"_Please_ don't---I love using these as party anecdotes." Adjusting his grip on the bassinet, he nodded toward the house. "Inside?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Once Colin was gone, Sookie popped up from out of nowhere---apparently it was 'Rory Huntzberger, This Is Your Life' day. "Hiya, sweets. There's cake on the table over there, and some chips and veggies and dips and stuff---hey rich kid," to Logan, and believe it or not, she said that fondly, like 'egghead;' if she didn't have a pet name for everybody, it just wasn't natural. "---and oh, my God, is that the baby?" That was Sookie: start thirteen trains of thought, then crash them all before they get there.

"Yeah, this is her. This is Ellie." Rory smiled proudly and aimed the little sleeper at Sookie.

"Ohhhhhhh, Ellie, oh, that's such a good name." Lorelai had already told her, and everybody knew that, but still. The babytalk commenced. "Hi Ellie! Hi! I'm your Auntie Sookie, a-yes I am! A-yes I am! Hoozagoogirl? A-hoozagoogirl? Yeah, that's right! Aw, just look at the wittle---"

"Hey, Rory, Logan, congratulations!" Liz came running over to the group, flanked as always by TJ.

"---aaaaand, I guess _you'll_ be talking now." Sookie let the interruption go and flashed the new parents a sympathizing smile. "I'm gonna go check on the food."

"Awww, so this is the kid, huh?" Liz said.

"Well a'course it's the kid, unless theirs got switched up with some other kid at the hospital." TJ never truly understood why everyone always thought he was so bizzare. He never understood because he never noticed it. One thing in a list of many. "I don't think they switched 'em though---look at 'er, she looks just like ya!" He pointed to Rory, then to Logan. "_You_, not so much, but _her_, _wow_. Oh---and an Idaho potato."

The parents of the tiny guest of honor had completely given up trying to respond anymore. Nod and smile was the key. Just nod and smile and they might not kill you.

"No, I'm tellin' ya, I think she'll look more like Logan. She'll have the hair," Liz insisted.

"What, all short? Lizzy, c'mon, she'll look like Jaime-Lee Curtis or somethin'."

"Not short---she'll be blonde. I just got this _vibe_."

"Wait, Jamie-Lee Curtis is the chick in the yogurt commercials, right?"

"Ooo, that reminds me, we need yogurt."

Fortunately, before anybody had a chance to discuss the minutia of blonde-vibes and and anything else trippy enough to freak out normal people who weren't used to it---and they were used to it, by the way---Lorelai came up behind the two of them, put one arm around Rory's shoulders and the other around Logan's, and interrupted with a friendly smile and a chipper "Hey! Could I see you in the house?"

No one was more familiar with the save than the girls and their boys. Liz and TJ were oblivious, all smiles and "Oh sure, go ahead"s. Actually, Liz was the one who said that; TJ was busy noticing that there was mustard on his sleeve.

Lorelai led the two of them back across the lawn toward the house. "Hey, sorry you got shanghai'd out there," she whispered once they were on the porch.

"Oh, no, it was nice; they---" Rory stopped. "Wait; you didn't know about this? I thought you set it up?"

"Me? No way, this was all Babette. She watched Will while Luke and I were at the hospital; and they were all very upset that they couldn't be there, by the way. They made me document _everything_, including your dad showing up four hours late; it was particularly endearing the way he tripped over the nurses' station like that."

"So you're saying you didn't even know about this?"

"No, why?"

"It's in your front yard."

"Hey, _you_ try two hours of the 'take a nap' song, see what _you_ do and don't notice."

"Point taken."

The front door was still open from Colin going back and forth---and muttering to himself about whether they were staying for a week or for two years, and who needs this much crap in the first place---and the three of them slipped safely into the house. Well, the four of them. As soon as they hit the foyer, Lorelai turned to Logan with a big, hinting smile on her face. "Heyyyy, you know, that is a _really_ nice jacket."

"Thank you."

"And your hair is really working today, are you doing anything different with it?"

"Nope." The monosyllabic responses came with a badly concealed grin. He knew where this was going.

Lorelai turned to Rory. "How long is he gonna let me go on?"

"Probably until it stops being entertaining."

"I'm gonna run out of subtle compliments that won't sound like I'm hitting on him."

Logan put her out of her misery. All though it definitely would have been fun to see just how long she could hold out. "You need the water bottle changed, don't you?"

She nodded like a happy little girl in a candy store. "Uh-huh. Yes please."

Logan just laughed, and headed toward the kitchen. Rory followed her mother into the living room. "One question."

"Shoot."

"Can't Luke change the water bottle?"

"He's at work."

"And you can't wait another three hours?"

"In the _Sahara_, maybe."

"You've got a boy now. Stop using mine."

Lorelai's eyebrows crawled up her head. "Well well, look who's getting all posessive. Maybe he _likes_ manual labor."

"Ha!"

"What, so we can share _clothes_ but we can't share _them_?"

"All the money in the world if you stop the 'sharing' subject _right_ now."

"Fine, but I want my purple sweater back."

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It was totally irrelevant to Lorelai that nobody even _had_ a water bottle anymore, but that was okay. Changing the water bottle had been part of the job description for any Rory-escort since the dawn of the new millennium. It wasn't that complicated once you got used to it; the whole mechanism itself was a grandma, the kind of fixture that was born with the house and would die with the house, but the stand had gotten a pain job in '06 and all you really had to do was give it a good shove, so hey, if Paul Revere had done it, who was he to buck tradition?

Logan was in the middle of using a rag to plug a leak in the base---okay, seriously, they were replacing this for Christmas---when his Blackberry went off. He stood up and took the call.

"Huntzberger." It was Pete Matheison, one of the other advisors at his company. They all had each other's cell numbers in case they weren't online when they were needed. "Hey, man. What's up?"

Pete talked. Logan listened. His face fell. He pulled out a chair and dropped himself into it. "What? They can't just _do_ that. I mean isn't there---" A pause. "No, no, I understand." Another. "Yeah. Thanks."

Logan hung up the phone. He listlessly dropped it on the table and sat there like that, arm across the backrest, not moving except to blink. He was still there ten minutes later when Rory left Ellie with Lorelai and came in to make sure he hadn't pulled a Sylvia Plath.

"Hey," she said gently. Logan didn't turn. "You coming? Ellie's still asleep, and mom wants to watch Boys Don't Cry again, which I don't think I can sit through without actually clubbing her over the head once the impressions kick in...." It didn't take her long to sense that something wasn't right. She pulled out the chair next to his and sat down. "Logan...?"

He let out a long, frustrated sigh before he said anything. Of all the things he could have to tell Rory an hour after bringing a newborn baby home, this was not supposed to be one of them. "That was work," he finally said. He finally looked at her.

"Yeah?" She just knew that this wasn't one of those 'happy ending' conversations. Nobody says 'that was work' like that if there was _good_ news involved.

That time he'd broken it off with Rory, that was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say. The few times in his life he'd stood up to his father, that had been pretty hard to say too. But this ranked up there. "I, uh...." He dragged a hand down his face. "The company's been bought out. They're taking on new admins, the contract's been signed...it's over."

"What?" Rory couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But...you've been one of their top guys for like...four years! They can't just tell you that's _it_."

"Well, they did. My last check'll be at the apartment on Monday."

Now it was Rory's turn to sit there in shock. "Wow. So...are you---"

"Look, I gotta go," Logan said all of a sudden. He stood up from the chair.

Rory stared at him. "Logan..."

"No, it's...we're cool, I just...need to go for a drive. Tell Lorelai I'll be back by nine."

Rory had nothing to say. Nothing. All she did was sit there, alone in the kitchen, as the enigne started and the car rolled out of the drive.

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**Well? I'm sure you've got TONS of opinions you're just DYING to share, huh? XD PLEASE REVIEW; as always, guys, details are a huge help! Favorite part, line, what you liked, general commentary, yadda yadda yadda... Thanks again for those of you who've already been doing that. Next chapter's in the works! **

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	9. Defunct, Delirious, DeLovely

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**So, Logan's unemployed, obviously this isn't the time to slow you down with a bunch of author-babbling... ;] **

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At nine, Rory was still awake. At eleven-thirty, when Lorelai and Ellie and Will and Luke were all tucked in and counting farm animals, Rory was still awake. At one, Rory was still awake. But by three-thirty in the morning, she'd been asleep for a good hour and a half. The waiting had worn her out, and she'd finally nodded off in her old bed.

She didn't hear the car door slam. He got the spare key out of the turtle and turned it in the lock, and nobody heard the front door open, either. Logan was very careful about that.

If this were five years ago, he would have stumbled in, barely aware he was still standing. He would have crashed into the sofa and made a racket and woken everyone, probably after stumbling into the kitchen and deciding it was a good time to make omelettes despite late hour or the deafening pain in his head. He would have been so plastered drunk that the next morning he'd have no memory of coming home.

But that guy just wasn't in him anymore.

He'd driven to the nearest bar---KC's, halfway to Woodbury, go figure---and he'd ordered a beer. And he sat there. And he looked at it. It was probably _still_ sitting there, untouched, that is if the staff hadn't bussed up by now. It was as if the big glass mug had been a crystal ball or something---was this how it was going to be? Run off, avoid your problems, get drunk, go to Vegas, jump off a cliff, be Logan the Dissapointment, _forever_? No matter how much progress he made or how much he wanted to be what everyone deserved for him to be, somehow that guy always came back out of him. And he was tired of it. And he was done with it. He _hated_ himself when he was that guy. Ever since Rory.

He quietly clicked the door shut behind him. Tonight, he's just gotten back from murdering Logan the Disappointment. It was about time he got rid of the little prat once and for all. Instead, Logan the Responsible was the one creeping through the dark living room. Logan the Husband. Logan the Father. Logan the Doing-Something-About-It. Logan the Grown-Up, you could say.

All of those Logans were in the kitchen now, and he carefully turned the doorknob to Rory's/Will's room, slowly letting himself in and shutting that behind him, too. Gently he sat himself on the edge of the bed. "Ace," he whispered.

Rory already knew he was there; she was a light sleeper, and she'd felt him sit down, plus, even if she hadn't, she just kind of knew these things. When he was there, when he wasn't. Her eyelids fluttered open. "What?" she whispered back, once she adjusted to being awake. Somehow she was incapable of sounding as mad as she'd intended to sound. He had that effect on her all the time, but that was usually when he smiled at her or kissed her or had that 'I'm-cute-don't-hurt-me' face, and right now he wasn't doing any of that. Maybe it was because he looked sorry.

"IBM's not hiring; I might be able to call back on Monday and see if anything's opened up, but that might come down to flirting with the executive and that's really more your thing than mine."

Now she wasn't even _going_ for 'mad;' now she was just confused. "What?"

"I e-mailed the admins at Facebook, but they don't need anybody, and I talked to Hugo Gray to see if he'd heard anything about anybody needing a manager or a consultant or a staff writer, so he's gonna call me back tomorrow. Nick and Phillip haven't heard anything either, and I know you had a problem with Bobby so I didn't call her, but pretty much everybody else I've ever met in a business transaction's keeping an eye out."

Rory sat up. "Logan---"

"I also sent my résumé out to MySpace, eBay, Apple---"

"Logan---"

"---YouTube, Google, Yahoo, MSN, basically anything you'd find with an arrow next to it on the CNN crawl. Of course chances are they won't _get_ it till five a.m, but---"

"Logan." The tone in her voice was different that time, gentler, impressed, grateful, and he stopped talking and listened. "You drove back to New York?"

He nodded. He _looked_ like he'd spent all night at the wheel, too: jacket all wrinkled, blonde scruff all over his face. It was cute now that she wasn't freezing him out.

"You drove back to Manhattan and you...looked for a job? At like...one in the morning?"

Again he nodded, and then he spoke. "I'm sorry, Rory. I shouldn't have shut you out like that. I can't keep taking off every time something goes wrong, and it's gonna take me some time to fully realize that, but I'm gonna. I want you to trust me."

If this were five years ago, Rory would have hesitated. If this were five years ago, she would have been left to wonder if he meant what he said or if the whole speech was a by-product of McKellan with the boys in Atlantic City. She might have turned him away; punished him for a few days. But it wasn't five years ago. It was now, and she couldn't have been any prouder of him than she was at this moment. Actually, she'd thought that a lot of times, and there always seemed to be an occasion that proved her wrong.

"I _always_ trust you," she said, and she saw the relief in his brown eyes. "I just want you to be happy."

"I _am_ happy."

"And if we have to scrimp for a while---"

"We _won't_."

"---but if we do, that's okay! I can clip a coupon with the best of 'em. And I don't need that subscription to the Wall Street Journal."

"You're getting your journal," Logan promised, and he leaned in for a kiss.

Which was exactly what they were doing when a tiny wailing cry pierced the room.

They pulled apart. For some reason---probably the fact that irony hated them both---they both started laughing. Quietly, but still.

Rory started to get up, intending to calm the baby, feed her and get her back to bed before she woke Will, but Logan stood up first. "No, go back to sleep, I got 'er."

She smiled, started to lie back down. "Whatever you say, Master and Commander. The formula's---"

"In the fridge, second shelf," he finished, lifting Ellie out of her bassinet and shooting Rory that smirk.

"You just gotta have a flair for everything, don't you?"

"Wouldn't be me otherwise." As soon as she was in Logan's arms, the baby stopped crying, and for some reason that made Rory happier than she'd been all day. "Hey, kiddo, you're tired, huh? Yeah, I need a midnight snack too sometimes. Come on, I gotcha."

Rory kept the smile as she watched them disappear into the kitchen, and it didn't take her long at all to fall back asleep, except _this_ time, she slept a lot more peacefully than she had an hour and a half ago.

.

.

.

"You _are_ gonna clean that before somebody _eats_ there, right?"

Lorelai looked over at Rory from her spot in front of the coffeemaker, watching as Rory changed Ellie's diaper on the kitchen table. A diaper emergency was a diaper emergency---there wasn't always time for luxuries like changing tables. Plus, Ellie had been fussy today, and she didn't want to wake Will. Naptime was sacred.

"Don't worry, nobody expects _you_ to do it," Rory shot back, securing the little tabby-thingies.

"Hey! I vacuumed. Once."

"When?"

"That one time."

"Oh, real strong argument." Rory picked her daughter up and sat in one of the chairs. She held the newly contented baby in her lap with one hand and picked up her Sidekick with the other. Lorelai eavesdropped as she hit '1' again and waited for the tone.

Her location by the counter _barely_ let her hear the muffled recording: "Hi, you've reached Logan Huntzberger, just leave a message and I'll get back to you asap." Then the annoying beep. Luckily Rory was like two feet away: she was a lot easier to hear.

"Hi, it's me. Just wanted to wish you luck on the interviews today---_we_ did, me and Ellie, and I'll throw mom in there too, since she's practically throwing her back out trying to hear this. And now she's cabbage-patching; I'd take pictures but chances are there'll be an encore. Anyway, Ellie _definitely_ looked like she missed you this morning, either that or she had to spit up, which she did, but, either way you get the jist. And remember, it's not the end of the world if you don't get it. Just be yourself and you'll do great---and I put a tie in your briefcase, _wear_ it, I know you're rolling your eyes, but just trust me. Okay, your voicemail's about to cut me off, so, good luck, and I love you, and we'll be here when you're done. Luck!"

By the time Rory pressed 'end' and put the phone back down on the table, Lorelai was staring at her, waiting to buy the rest of the vowels. "And that was...."

Rory sighed. "Every time he has an interview, I leave him a voicemail from us that he can listen to whether it goes well or not." Lorelai was about to open her mouth, but Rory cut her off. "And do _not_ make some sort of 'cute' comment or you're cleaning your own table."

"Fair enough." The caffeinated one poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. "So he's been going on interviews for what, four days now?"

"Yeah, he's got two today, so that makes...six, I think."

"And nobody's hired him yet? I find that hard to believe; I mean do they _know_ his last name? These are the same type of people who'd kiss Mitchum's feet if he wasn't too busy using them to step on the little people."

"He's just waiting to hear back," Rory corrected. "He wants to do this without his dad's help or influence, and I think that's very grown up of him."

"It _is_, it _is_ grown up of him," Lorelai agreed, a little too emphatically, in a way that you just _knew_ she was going somewhere with this. "And you know who else is grown up? Your grandmother."

"Ohhh, boy."

Lorelai had been ranting all her life, but she'd fine-tuned the art since she'd been with Luke, and she employed her fascinating ranting skills now, pulling a letter from a magnet on her fridge. "'Dear Lorelai; congratulations on becoming a grandmother. Maybe now you will know what it feels like to have absolutely no say in a child's future. I've noticed that you haven't updated your wardrobe in a while, so I've taken the liberty of separating everything into two piles: one of clothing suitable for a grandmother, or at least acceptable, and one you can donate to some sort of drive for the less fortunate. Note that the first pile is drastically smaller, see you on Friday, Emily.'"

"Here we go."

"Who _does_ that? Who sneaks into your house while you're at work at sics the Queer Eye guys on your closet? Emily Post, that's who. I should have kept that stupid alarm system---get her _arrested_, _that'll_ teach her!"

"Grandma was already arrested. That one time."

"Yes, but I didn't get to see it! Or cause it! You know what? At dinner on Friday, I'm gonna wear my sparkly skirt and that really low-cut Wierd Al t-shirt, _just_ because I can!"

It was useless to try and talk her out of that. "Attagirl."

Lorelai took her coffee and headed for the living room, but not before Paul Anka trotted into the kitchen, and she looked at him like he'd just tracked dirt across the house. "You! Are completely useless! From now on I want you on guard-dog behavior for anyone driving a luxury car!"

"Uh, mom..."

"And isn't blonde!" she added, remembering the Porsche. Not that Paul Anka was paying even the _slightest_ bit of attention or knew what _any_ of that meant. Having gotten the last word, she stormed into the living room to contemplate how awesome it would be to have been adopted.

Rory just shook her head. She smiled down at Ellie. "See? She gets edgy if she goes without coffee for too long, but then it kicks in again and it's all good. Just don't say anything bad about Aerosmith until it does."

.

.

**Wow, 2,000+ words, and I think that's my shortest chapter. Write much? XD Anyway, guys, you know the drill, PLEASE REVIEW, DETAILS ARE HIGHLY APPRECIATED, I'd love to know what your favorite part/line/thing was, what you liked, etc etc, and THANK YOU if you've been doing that all along.... More is coming! **

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	10. In Omnia Parentus

**.**

**All right, their 'few days in Stars Hollow' has been up for a while now, in fact Ellie's about a month old, so we're in the apartment in Manhattan....**

.

.

"Okay, tabby-thingies secured, pink onesie buttoned, tiny hat on, tiny socks match...I think we can call this one a success," Rory listed. The chances that baby Ellie would care about any of this even if she _could_ understand it were slim, but she was using the Lorelai method of parenting, which boiled down to talking even if you really had nothing to say. Besides: when you spent forty-five minutes bathing and changing a baby, you tended to make sure you hadn't forgotten anything.

Rory lifted the fidgety little girl from the changing table and walked out into the apartment's sunlight-filled living room, enjoying the fact that she had another month of leave from work ahead of her. It was torture not to write back when she was a moody prenatal housing unit, but now that she had this amazing little mini-person to hang out with, it wasn't so bad at all.

Rory curled up in a corner of the big blue couch and propped Ellie up in her arm, using the other hand to fix her ponytail and then press 'play' on the DVD remote. After about twenty seconds she leaned her head toward the baby. "Okay, see him right there? That's Augustus Gloop. We don't like him. Sure, he has a golden ticket and he can roll around like a human cat toy, but he's totally greedy; definitely not heir-to-the-chocolate-factory material." She looked down into her daughter's big receptive blue eyes for emphasis. "He's no Charlie. We like Charlie. He's the good guy." It was funny: somehow, Ellie really did look like she completely understood.

All these years, Rory had never really believed her mother when she'd said that Rory was perfect as a baby, well-behaved and all that. She'd always figured, _no_ baby could be _too_ well-behaved, right? But now that she had one of her own she was seriously beginning to question that. Ellie was a tiny little saint, who was docile and curious and took in everything around her, like a sponge. She was a spongy little saint. Okay, yes, she cried when she was hungry or tired or needed changing, but it wasn't like she could stand up and say, 'Excuse me, but I'm not too comfortable at the moment, can we remedy that?' _All_ babies cried for _those_ reasons. But on the whole, there were no complaints. As long as she was with mommy or daddy or Gramma Lorelai or anybody she was familiar with, she was fine, taking rides and playing games and watching movies. It was as if she were five and not five weeks.

Except for right now; apparently, she wasn't in a movie-watching mood. Ellie started to get fussy, and after waiting a sec to make sure it wasn't just a passing burp or something, Rory turned off the TV, got off the couch, and started bouncing Ellie around the room. By this point, the fussiness had evolved into a full-blown crying session.

"Okay, okay, I get it, Wonka bad, I heard ya. Aw, sweetie, what's wrong? Do you want your---" Rory started looking around the room for a toy she could offer, finally picking some random thing up from the coffee table. "---blue...sock...thing?" Ellie kept on crying, and now she hit a new pitch. "Yeah, of course you don't; I wouldn't want it either. What about...Stanley? Yeah! You want to play with Stanley?"

Perfecting the Quick-Mommy-Dash into Ellie's room, Rory plucked her daughter's favorite stuffed animal---a big purple iguana, of all things---and bopped it up and down in front of her. No luck; the most the poor lizard could do was get a few seconds of slightly calmed interest out of her, then it was back to the screaming.

Trying to hide her frustration, Rory dropped the rejected plushie on the carpet and kept dance-walking around the living room. "Oh, come on, baby, what's the matter, huh? What is it? I know you're changed, I know you're fed, you just woke up so you can't be tired already... Shh, it's okay..."

Still with the crying. As a last-ditch effort, Rory tried to remember the words to 'Copacabana.' "And...something something...Lola, she was a showgirl...no, that sucks...uh...oh!" _Now_ she had it. "In the jungle, the mighty, jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...."

Okay, so she wasn't going to get nominated for a Grammy for it anytime soon, but sure enough, it was working. Ellie loved The Lion King---that had been proven after the Great Nap Incident of 2011---and slowly but surely, her sobs were trailing off. Rory smiled and kept going. "In the village, the peaceful village, the lion sleeps tonight...a-wimoweh, a-wimoweh, a-wimoweh, a-wimoweh..."

It worked! It totally worked! Ellie was even smiling now, and Rory felt like dancing, but seeing's how she sucked at it, she took a rain check. She was just about to throw in a few silly faces to seal the deal, when somebody knocked on the door, which freaked Ellie out, and she went right back to the crying.

"Ohhh, no no no! You were so happy! It's okay! Remember the lion? I can do the lion again..." It wasn't going to cut it. Rory let out a groan and headed for the door. "Whoever you are, you better have Mickey Mouse with you!"

A voice came through the door. "It's me, Ace, I left my key in the other jacket."

"Oh." Rory made a point of getting to the door quicker than she'd intended to a second ago. After she unlocked it and hauled it open, Logan came in and tossed his briefcase on the sofa.

"You were actually expecting a six-foot mouse...?"

"No, but it'd help..." She didn't need to say why: Ellie was still wailing.

Logan held his hands out. "Give her."

"Oh, bless you. She's been like this all morning. I had her quiet for a while there, but then there was Augustus, and she didn't want Stanley, and the lions failed me..." she rambled, transferring the baby to Logan.

He patted her little back and gave Rory an amused look. "Do I wanna know?"

"No, you really don't."

Logan started across the living room and tried to calm his daughter. "Hey, now, what's wrong with you, huh? You're just fine, kiddo. You're okay." Maybe she was losing her mind, but it sounded to Rory like Ellie was actually quieting back down. Logan kept his voice calm and low. "Yeah, there we go. I gotcha. You're just fine." He nodded toward Ellie's room---"I'm gonna go try and put her down"---and then he disappeared into it.

Rory just stood there, shocked. Here she'd spent four hours making plushies dance and singing a Tokens song that hadn't seen the light of day since Tim Rice ressurrected it, but then daddy comes home at eleven-thirty in the morning from his seven-hundredth job interview and---oh yeah, that was today. _Wow_, she needed coffee.

Over the next few minutes that Logan was in the baby's room, Rory put on a fresh pot, put away the DVD and started to clean up the living room. By the time he came out, the house smelled like a Starbucks and she had an armful of toys and a towel over her shoulder.

She looked up at him, noticing for the first time that he was in one of his best suits. "Fickle girl." Sure, her daddy was all handsome and charming, but she just hoped Ellie knew that he'd used that to get out of parking tickets. "You got her to sleep?" she asked in disbelief.

"_No_, I got her to _chill_. She is happily fascinated with Stanley."

"They reconciled?"

"Apparently. I still don't know what she sees in that thing."

"It's cute."

"It's an _iguana_."

"A cute iguana."

This could go on for another thirty-five years, so Logan conceded to the wierd purple lizard debate, hoping they could actually get to what he'd been dying to say since he came home. "Fine, I give up."

"_Thank_ you. Hey, how did the interview go today?"

_Bingo._ "Aww, man, it was awful."

Rory's face was twenty percent disappointment, eighty percent sympathy. "Oh _no_!"

"Yeah, I know, I can't believe it. I mean first the coffee was cold, then he starts talking about starting Monday and working mornings, and that's really gonna cut into my gym time..."

The toys dropped on the floor. God, he loved that reaction. Rory stood up, wide-eyed. "You got it? You got a job?"

"Ebay, baby! Sales manager, customer service, full benefits."

"Oh my God!" She flew into his arms, and he laughed. "Ahh, my captain of industry! I'm so proud of you!"

"And tonight we celebrate! On the way home I booked a reservation at the Rainbow Grill, eight-'o-clock."

"Oh, _perfect_, I haven't worn anything without spit-up on it since---" Rory hit the pause button on her excitement. "Wait. Leave Ellie?"

"Well, yeah---there's two hundred fifty thousand people in Stars Hollow who'd gladly sell their kidney if it meant helping you out; I figured we'd find one of 'em."

"To watch her?" She still seemed to be having trouble grasping the concept.

Logan knew this. "Yes. It's a little cliché, but I'd expect a potential babysitter to actually sit with the baby."

"We can do that?"

He laughed. "We're the parents now, Ace. Parents get babysitters all the time."

This was like an entirely new concept to Rory, and the big smile crept back over her face. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Tonight."

She still had her arms wrapped around his neck, so there wasn't very far to go at all for her lips to meet his. Just for the breifest second. Well, okay, her mind _said_ that, but then it kind of melted and stopped being useful all together, so it really had no say in the matter. What was the difference between one second and two hundred of 'em, anyway?

Logan, too, was about to disengage---he _had_ just gotten in the door after all, coffee was on, place needed cleaning---but then, it was Rory, and they were alone for the first time in days and days, and he missed her, he _actually missed_ her, and all that could wait, right? It was heaven, being right here with her, and you took all you could get of that kind of thing.

She couldn't have shared the sentiment more. God, she loved it when he kissed her. Living in this moment forever sounded like a pretty good bargain right about now. And hey, he didn't need the jacket to do that, did he? Nah, didn't think so. She got rid of it for him. Or the tie, either; she loosened the knot and pulled it off his neck, and so it was just good thinking when he threw the towel off her shoulder and went for the blue sweater she'd thrown on over her tank top, 'cause that was just unneccesary...

Until a piercing wail came from the baby's room. Then leaving it _on_ became the good idea.

Reluctantly she moved back, breaking the kiss but keeping her hands on his shoulders. Logan didn't seem to want to let her go; his were still on her waist. After a beat: "Okay, I think we've found the first downside to this whole 'parent' thing," he pointed out.

Rory let out a laugh---God, had they _ever_---and because her smile was contagious to him, he cracked a grin too. Finaly she slipped her hands off him and he let her go.

"Okay, here's the plan." Logan unbuttoned his overstarched white sleeves and rolled them up. "You, call your mom, make the arrangements, take the card, go downtown and pick out something for tonight. Anything you want; it's on eBay. I'll take care of Janis Joplin."

"Are you sure? You just got here."

"Absolutely, Ace, the day is young. She'll nap at some point. Now go."

Rory couldn't help but smile at this point. Who was she to argue with that?

.

.

"But, if you'll _just_ look over the petition---"

"Get out of my diner, Taylor."

"---you'll see that we only need twelve more signatures---"

"Get out of my diner, Taylor."

"---to put us over the top! My goodness Luke, you'd think I was asking you to hand over your firstborn or something!"

"My firstborn _also_ wants you to get out of my diner, Taylor."

"Honestly, I don't see how you _have_ one. If _I_ were a woman---"

"Do you _really_ want my commentary on that subject, Taylor?" Thankfully, he didn't have to give it: the phone rang at that moment, and Luke wound the cord around and picked it up, tuning out the noisy diner full of customers and Taylor's incessant nagging. Not that he hadn't been before. "Luke's."

Rory knew this was his rush hour, so she kept it short and sweet. Of course, she also knew that Luke would tell all his customers to shut up and shove it when it came to Rory, but again, she had a deadline. "Hey Luke, it's me: is mom there?"

"Rory! No, uh, she's...at the inn, or Sookie's, or...Constantinople, I don't know. Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah, everything's fine; Logan and I just need a sitter for tonight and she's not picking up her cell."

"Why do you need a sitter?"

"Logan got a job."

"Really? That's great!"

"Yeah, we're celebrating on the town tonight, that is if I can catch her. Tell her I called, okay?"

"Yeah, sure I will."

"Thanks Luke!"

"Bye now."

Annoyingly, Taylor was still there when Luke hung the phone back on the wall. "Just consider the benefits, Luke!"

"If you're staying, you're eating: now what can I get ya."

"Your signature---"

"_Besides_ my foot lodged where I can guarantee you're not gonna want it."

That seemed to get through to him; at least for the moment. Luke had no doubt he'd be back, probably with lawyers and a court order and the C&H Pure Cane Sugar Dancers. "Your stubbornness is going to catch up with you one of these days, Lucas!"

"I'm immobilized in terror," he deadpanned, watching satisfied as Taylor exited out the door before going back to working the register.

.

.

No doorknob was worth this. Lorelai was standing smack-dab in the middle of Kim's antiques, thinking how great it would be if one of these giant armoires would fall on her head and konk her out of her misery. "_Look_, Mrs. Kim, I'm not _haggling_, I'm just saying that you told me it was going to be _forty_-five."

"That was before you say you're going to _use_ it. Price is _sixty_-five."

"It's a _doorknob_, what _else_ am I supposed to do with it?"

"Display it on a high shelf, polish with Minwax."

"I only wanted it in the first place because Room 5 has no doorknob."

"So you buy this out of pity? This is a pity-doorknob?"

"No! I _love_ it, I'm just saying---" Saved by the bell. At that moment Lorelai's phone went off, and she checked the caller I.D. It was Rory; she had to take this. "Okay, excuse me for a sec, I just...we are not done here!" The tiny scary woamn stalked off, and once Lorelai was safely outside, she hit 'talk.' "Thank you thank you thank you thank you _thank _you thank you."

"Uh...wow. Why?"

"Mrs. Kim. Lots of arguing. Historic doorknob. Face numb..."

"Right. Listen, I kind of need you to do me a favor tonight."

"A favor, huh?"

"Yeah. See, Logan got a job---"

"He did? Kid, that's great! Where at?"

"Ebay."

"Wow, big."

"Yeah, he's gonna...oversee...or, manage...or, something about selling...and then there was something about customer service."

"Wow, Ray Babbitt, so I take it you're really in-the-know."

Rory caught the reference but didn't comment on it; that could be potentially very dangerous. They'd be here 'till next year. "Anyway: I need you to watch Ellie tonight. Is that okay?"

"Wait, so, let me see if I've got it right. You want me to drive two hours to Manhattan?"

"Yes please..."

"Pick up _your_ daughter?"

"Actually you can just watch her at our place; it'll be easier..."

"And spend _my night_ as a modern version of Auntie Mame but with better hair?"

"Basically yes."

"Hm. What's my motivation?"

"Well, you get to come shopping with me in the city..."

Lorelai gasped a little bit. She'd had her at 'favor,' of course, but Rory'd just uttered the magic words. "_Rory_," she mock-scolded. "I do not need any extra incentive to watch my granddaughter. I love her and cherish her and you _are_ going to buy me something shiny, right?"

She could practically _hear_ Rory's relief-smile over the phone as she caught on to the bit. "So you'll come?"

"Absolutely. Consider me gone."

"Thanks, mom, you have _no_ idea."

"Oh, I think I might..."

"You'll be here by three?"

"See you then."

.

.

Five hours, they spent downtown. Five hours of 'yes, no, the burgundy, not the green, no forget the burgundy, get the navy,' five hours of 'he booked _what?_ That's it, I can't talk to you,' five hours of store-hopping and splitting cheesecake like girls without husbands or babies or jobs. It was bliss, like having the perfect pair of shoes every single day.

Of course, one of the perks of time was that they _did_ have all those things now, and by ten-thirty the baby unit was safe with Lorelai while the husband unit was in the back of the cab with Rory. The blissful shopping afternoon had been topped off by the perfect night, with the perfect dinner at the perfect restaurant that was perfectly just the two of them. It had taken them twenty minutes just to get a cab, and neither really noticed or cared. Even the _weather_ was perfect. Serendipity was rarely this kind.

"Okay, so, the duck? _Wow_. Seriously. Wow," she raved. Logan laughed. "I mean, some people can really screw up a duck, but _that_, with the...the garlicky sauce thing?"

"Which is I'm sure exactly what it's called on the menu."

"Whoa. Just, whoa. I want that for my last meal."

"Aw, instead of the pot roast?"

"Who said 'instead of?' You're thinking small, Huntzberger."

Again he laughed. That, Ellie's giggle, Luke saying coffee's on, and anything by the Smiths; best sounds in the world. She could have gone into a deeper list if she'd had a notebook. "My bad, Ace, must be the port talking."

Rory smoothed out the front of her strapless navy mini and tucked her legs up onto the seat---as much as the belt allowed anyway---turning to face him. She swiped a curled brown strand out of her eye. "Okay, so, tell me again."

"Aaaaaace...."

"_Come_ on, just one more time."

Logan let out a sigh, but the frustration was just for show. She knew he was as proud of this new job as she was of him for landing it. "I am a full-time business rep and sales manager for eBay."

"Gah, I love that! It sounds so official, so important."

There's no way he was losing the grin now. He'd probably die with it. "Well, I _will_ have to make a lot of decisions, do a lot of shop talk..."

"Oh, so they didn't hire you for your fancy suit and boyish charm?"

"Nope, pretty much just for the shop talk." Logan took her wrist and pulled her toward him, leaning in to kiss her as he did.

After a few seconds Rory pulled away just far enough to ask: "Okay, now, can you shop _while_ you talk? 'Cause if you can then that job's even better than I thought; I might just join you over there."

"Or you could join me over _here_..."

"Ah, he's a shrewd negotiator, ladies and gentlemen." And Round Two commenced.

Of course, the big swarthy cab driver up front there really didn't allow for a whole lot of privacy, so they broke it off after a good thirty seconds or so. Okay, a minute. Rory moved back to her side of the seat.

"Okay, here's what I was thinking," Logan proposed. "We get John Goodman up there to drop us off at the Plaza, and we can maybe catch a late movie."

If the driver heard that, he showed no indication of it. Which was just as well: Rory really would rather not go home and have to explain to her mother why Logan was squashed by a cabbie. Instead, she skillfully tried to sway the subject. Well, not _skillfully_, exactly. "_Or_, you know, we could go home and Netflix Goodfellas again..."

Rory was many things---stubborn, beautiful, witty, an excellent writer---but 'good at hiding things' was not one of them. Not in the least. Logan's grin turned into a knowing smirk. "You want to go back to the apartment," he guessed. Actually, it was less of a guess, more of a statement.

She pretended otherwise. "Me? No, no no, I just figured---"

"To check on Ellie."

"That's not it at _all_, I---"

"You can't be away from her for one night."

"I can _too_."

"Rory."

"Okay, fine!" She threw her hands up in frustration. "Yes. I do. I can't. I'm a big fat mama's girl in reverse. I'm a terrible mother."

But Logan wasn't accusing her. If anything, he was in the same boat. "Rory, _relax_, you are _not_ a bad mother. It's okay. In fact the only reason I asked was 'cause I figured you weren't ready to go home yet."

Well, _that_ was a releif. Her eyes showed it. "Really?"

"Oh, yeah, totally. Do you know how many times I almost checked my phone in that restaurant?"

"That wasn't just me?"

"Seven."

"Eight! Oh, thank God."

"So home?"

"Home, definitely."

Glad to know she wasn't the only spaz-parent in the car, Rory leaned across the seat again and Logan kissed her for the ninth time since dessert. After what felt like a year, Rory moved back a little. "Maybe a quick drive around the park first?" she conceded.

"I can arrange that."

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**XD Loved writing this one. So, everybody, you know the drill: SPECIFIC REVIEWS ARE APPRECIATED, I'd love to hear what/which part/line you liked, etc etc etc, and to those of you who do/have been, I am eternally grateful !!!!!!!!!!!! ^^ More is on its way, I promise.**

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	11. They Shoot Huntzbergers, Don't They?

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**Back again, here we go. We're going to skip another month now, so that it's (late) June 2011, Rory is back at work, and...well, just read it... ^^ **

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_Oh, sure, I can handle it. Yes, I'm sure. And yes, I'm sure I'm sure. Ace, stop asking me if I'm sure, just go. Yes. Absolutely. Uh-huh, I can handle this, I'm good, I'm an idiot.... _All this was in his head, of course, mocking everything he'd said three hours ago---minus the 'idiot' part of course: he'd added that just now---and yet somehow it wasn't helping. Now he truly understood for the first time why women did this while the men were at work, or playing golf somewhere. Because men were men, not women, and men sucked at this. Or at least, _he_ was sucking at this.

"It's okay, it's okay, look, I'll give you five thousand bucks if you stop crying right now! Trust me, you have four of the richest grandparents on the east coast." But Ellie just kept wailing. Apparently, in addition to Logan's hair and Rory's eyes, she also inherited both of their lung capacities combined. She normally _never_ cried this much, and Logan couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with the fact that Rory was at work and she was stuck with _him_ as her caretaker, Reject Father of 2011. "Shhh, come on, you're okay...." Judging by the screams she wasn't buying it.

Logan was at his wits' end---and he'd grown up with Colin and Finn, so that was a long fuse. He'd tried everything he'd ever heard about or read about to get a baby to stop crying, and had any of them worked? No. Did _he_ feel like crying now? Getting there. These were _tested methods_, weren't they supposed to work? Unless something was wrong with her. Was she sick? Oh God, what if she was sick? What if she had baby croup or an ear infection or rubella and he didn't know because he was raised by parents whose extent of advice was a useless commentary on boat speed?

"All right, all right, what do you say we get some reinforcements?" His rhetorical question was met with a particularly loud wail. "Good, we have a consensus." Desperate, Logan shifted Ellie to his other arm, walked over and picked up the phone from the end table. Calling Rory was out of the question: she'd _just_ gotten back to work, the _last_ thing she needed was a desperate call from Michael Keaton. Honor was out of town. Only one other name jumped to mind, and before he could stop himself he dialed the number. A phone had never rung so slowly.

Finally a click. For once in her life, she hadn't checked the caller I.D, either. "Hello?"

"Lorelai! I don't know what to do---she keeps crying and I tried everything and I don't know if she's sick or tired or hungry...I tried feeding her but she wouldn't eat, I tried putting her down but she won't sleep, I tried the toys and the TV and the Airplane game and she doesn't have a fever but she won't calm down, and I don't mean to bother you but I don't know who else to call and would I get points for saying 'Help me, Lorelai Kenobi, you're my only hope?' 'Cause I'm just that pathetic and I know it's not that great of a reference but---"

"Whoa, easy there, geek." Lorelai knew who it was and knew that the baby-shreiking on the other side of the line was probably not the TV in the background. Still, she wasn't going to let a Star Wars reference go _completely_. Men. "You say you've tried everything?"

"Everything," Logan confirmed.

"Try the bottle again and put on Barney. I'm on my way."

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.

Logan hadn't actually expected Lorelai to go out of her way and drive all the way from Stars hollow just to come to the rescue, but by the time her Jeep pulled up outside the building, he couldn't have gotten to the door fast enough. Ellie was still bawling at top volume, and he still had no clue why, or how to turn it off. The door was unlocked and wide open before she even got to it.

"Uh, _wow_," Lorelai managed. She took two steps into the messy apartment, took off her lime knit hat, hung it on the hook, and looked around the place. There should have been police tape across the doorway. "So Mötley Crüe just left?"

Logan was no housekeeping advertisement, either, she noticed; he had a cloth over one shoulder, the tiny screaming girl by the other, his shirt was buttoned wrong, and he looked like he hadn't slept since 1942. "I don't know what else to do, she's just, she's...."

"Here, can I just...?" Lorelai held her hands out toward Ellie, and Logan was more than grateful to hand her over. Lorelai studied her closely. "Okay, well, you were right, she doesn't have a fever, so that's good. She looks fine, I don't think it's anything else, but if she's still fussy tomorrow then maybe take her to that doctor uptown."

"Okay, good, I can do that."

"First things first, why don't I get Foghorn Leghorn here to cut the solo."

Seeing's how he'd just spent all morning trying to _do_ that, Logan didn't see how that was going to be possible. But to his complete shock---though, really, he shouldn't have been surprised---after just two or three minutes of bopping around and shushing, Lorelai'd managed to get Ellie down to mild sniffles. It was hopeless. He was the single most hopeless dad in the universe. What do you know, he and Mitchum finally had something in common.

He dropped himself onto the couch and threw his head back, draping one arm across his eyes. Lorelai took the baby into her room and came out with good news. "Looks like all that fussing wore her out. She's sound asleep."

Logan didn't budge. "Mmhmph."

Walking over to him, Lorelai lifted his arm off his face. "Anybody alive in there?"

Barely. He had never, _ever_ felt more incapable than he did right at this second. And it sucked. Reluctantly Logan sat up straighter and looked at Lorelai as she sat down. "That was incredible."

"Well, yeah, I did get the Mom Award of 1989...."

"I mean, you come in, and in two minutes you've got her sound asleep. _I_ couldn't do that in _five hours_. She'd be better off being raised by Kirk."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, jump back. First of all; Kirk, children? Pah! Second, you are _not_ a bad dad, Logan. This just happens to everybody at some point. I remember one time, Rory was six months old, and she cried for like eight hours. I was one step away from pulling a ding-dong-ditch and leaving her on Miss Patty's doorstep, figured I'd head to Cancun for a few days. She's not sick, and she doesn't hate you, she's just cranky. That's parenthood my friend." She christened him into the club with a pat on the knee and a 'been there' smile.

Logan smiled back---weakly, but still. The effort was there. "Thanks, Lorelai. I appreciate you comin' out here."

"Aw, any time. Just one question."

"Shoot."

"Why?"

She'd lost him. "Why what?"

Gesturing to the tornado'd apartment, Lorelai elaborated, "Why, you, here, this, half past noon in Wonderland with the munchkin. That's pretty ambitious, going solo. Don't you work today?"

"Oh. That. I did, but I took the morning off. Rory got called out to some press conference at the last minute."

"Press conference. So she's off being the press, huh?"

Logan nodded.

"And she's been gone all morning?"

He nodded.

"And you were assuming it'd be a piece of cake?"

Nodded.

"And have you eaten or cleaned up or gotten the ringing out of your ears yet?"

Shook his head.

"Okay, tell you what." Lorelai had her 'plan' face on. "Why don't you go grab a Pop Tart, get a shower, and I'm guessing you could benefit from a cup of coffee. I'll watch Ellie. And for a limited-time-offer I'll throw in two duck-shaped doorstops and a set of Ginsu knives."

"You sure?" Logan started to get up off the couch.

"No, I have no idea what Ginsu knives are. Now go. Go go. Before I change my mind."

Logan managed a tired grin and shook his head as he headed out of the room, and he couldn't help but think that growing up with Lorelai for a mom had to have been _so_ much better than growing up with Shira. He turned around and walked backwards to face her as he said: "You know this officially locks you in the 'cool mom' category for life, right?"

Lorelai waved a hand. "Eh, I'm good with that. As long as they put it on my driver's liscence." She added a smile to it. "Go."

Logan raised his hands over his head in surrender as he turned again to leave the room. After the morning he'd had, he really didn't need much convincing. Of course, as luck would have it, Ellie in the next room chose that exact moment to wake up and practice her Louis Armstrong impersonation.

Before Logan could react, or sigh and beat his head against the wall, Lorelai was up off the couch, doing the closest thing to sprinting she'd ever done toward the baby's room. "I got it I got it I got it...." She stopped in the doorway and gave Logan a look. "Hey. You, with the standing. Go. Go go."

Again, the gesture of surrender. "I'm going, I'm gone."

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Downtown, at about the same time, Rory's morning was a whole _different_ kind of hectic. She'd narrowly avoided ripping her hose getting out of the Prius, dashed into the conference hall two minutes before it was to begin, and then on top of that there was the whole I.D, coffee, donut-or-no-donut, finding-a-place-to-stand fiasco. As of last night she hadn't even _known_ about this, much less planned to attend, so really, her editor was just lucky that she'd managed to throw on a suit, make arrangements for the baby and keep both her eyes open and aligned. Well, no, that was only true to an extent: no _way_ was she going to miss _this_.

By this time, the statement itself was over. _Finally_, after listening to the executives of the Harcourt publishing company ramble on like Ben Stein for two hours about how they planned to lay off two departments to expand their primary funding---which she'd taken meticulous notes on, by the way---it was finally getting to the part that Rory loved best; the questioning, the face-to-face discussion, the hard-hitting facts that were the reason she'd gotten into journalism.

The chairman of the board made her way to the podium, and the mill of voices in the room quieted to a muffled silence. "All right, thank you all for coming. The way this is going to work is that there will be a short period of question-and-answer by the press, after which the panel may then address the members of the press with any counter-questions they may have of their own. You may begin."

No sooner did a few camera bulbs flash than Rory's pen-bearing hand went up, and she adjusted her I.D. with the other.

One of the executives on the panel, Bob Fleischman, gave Rory the point-and-nod approval she was waiting for, and without hesitation she poised her pen and spoke loud and clear across the room. "Rory Huntzberger, New York Times. Mr. Fleischman, what gave you the impression that cutting departments was the best way to increase revenue? Surely more staff equals more productivity in your situation."

"Well, that's, that's certainly a fair question; however, we felt that as a company we could turn a higher profit if we consolidated our most neccesary departments...."

Rory wrote all of this down as he said it, which no doubt everyone else in the room was doing too: that is if they valued their jobs. She nodded as he wrapped up his explanation, then couldn't help but feel a little pang of pride as the panel moved on to the next questioner. She'd just _asked a question at a real live press conference_. Like an actual reporter. She _was_ an actual reporter. It was never not exciting to think about. Every once in a while, she still felt like she was going to wake up in her freshman year dorm room at Yale with Paris standing over her screeching about an alarm clock. Of course, even though eight years had passed since then, there was _always_ a chance of _that_ happening. Paris was Paris. Crazy was the status quo.

Now was not the time to think about Paris---not that there was ever a convenient one, mind you. Now was the time to focus, because that's what reporters do, and so that's what she did while the panel took another nine or ten questions from the others in the room, the panicked-looking ones with the clipboards and cameras and outdated tape recorders. That took up about, maybe a good half an hour, and afterward the chairman took the podium again.

"Thank you; no more questions. Panel?" Wow, _that_ was worth the interruption. What a speech: look out, 'I Have A Dream.'

Again, the woman sat down, and the board went about its rebuttal. Stephen Lundgren, the one on the far left, pointed to a woman in the back. "Miss Farraday, Chicago Tribune: what you were saying about lack of professionalism in the workplace---can you back that up with a quote?"

"No, not at this time."

Another of the suits, Aaron something, nodded to a tall thin man in the corner. "You, with the Post---you mentioned a few suggestions to increase revenue by ten percent?"

"Uh, yes...cut back on paper, keep files electronically, discount advertising with local businesses...."

"Ah. Rory Huntzberger?"

There was so little semblance of a segue in that that it took Rory a moment to realize she was being spoken to. It was Bob Fleischman again. In her delay, the room went quiet to await her response.

"Yes?"

"Just off the record; you said you're a writer for the New York Times, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"So I take it to mean that the Times has been acquired by the Huntzberger Publishing Group," Fleischman concluded, awaiting confirmation.

It suddenly felt like a big fat spotlight had been installed above her head, and boy, was it bright out here. "Uh, no, no sir, it hasn't."

"So what exactly _is_ your affiliation with Huntzberger Publishing?" This time it was Lundgren speaking.

"Oh, no, I'm not---"

"You _are_ of _those_ Huntzbergers, right?"

"Well, yes, but I don't see what that has to do with---"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," the exec realized. "It's just that we've been trying to buy the company from your father for---"

"My _what_?" This was quickly becoming the most bizzare thing she'd heard since Finn asked if he could break-dance outside their apartment for tips. Rory didn't have a clue how her personal life had come into a public forum like this, but she'd just as soon put it back.

"You _are_ Mitchum Huntzberger's daughter, aren't you?"

"No!"

Aaron something leaned over to Lundgren, but the microphone picked up the whole exchange anyway. "No, no, wasn't her name...Glory, or something?"

"Faith...?"

"Honor," Rory corrected. Her ability to hide her irritation was running low, but even so, she was powerless to put a stop to this conversation. It was off the record and all in the name of journalism. She was trapped.

Fleischman was back. "So you must be affiliated with _Logan_ Huntzberger then."

What was the point? At least that one was true. "Yes."

"And what is your exact affiliation?"

"Logan is my husband. All right? As far as my career goes I have no affiliation with any of them. My work is independent. Now can we please move on to something a little more journalistic? Or at least think of a different word for 'affiliation?'"

Her minor outburst did no good. "What is the likelihood of either Huntzberger selling the business?"

"Does Logan plan to return to take over as head of the company?"

"Is there any possibility of arranging a meeting with Mr. Huntzberger...?"

The questions came in back-to-back succession: she couldn't have answered if she'd wanted to. Triggered by the rapid-fire interrogation, soon the whole room filled to the brim with sounds of reporters throwing questions at the dais, executives alternately trying to strike a deal and saying 'no comment,' flashbulbs going off spilling light across the front row, and above the din of all of that the chairman had taken the podium and kept saying "That's all the time we have" in an effort to adjourn the conference all together.

With all those things going on, in a racket like that, it was fairly easy for Rory to push her way toward the exit and slip quietly from the room. It was over anyway. All she wanted to do now was drive home, work on her story, and make a mental note to burn any book she had at home published by Harcourt. They deserved it, even if Whitman and Brontë didn't.

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"So, heads up, your daughter is a _huge_ Loggins & Messina fan." Lorelai kept the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder as she sat at reception at the Dragonfly, going over the reservations for July. She'd started this at seven, and that was three-and-a-half hours ago, and it was dark, and she was tired, and she _still_ didn't see whatever error Michel was nagging about. Big French crybaby.

"Oh yeah?" came Rory's voice from the other end.

"Yeah, she pulled an Ella Fitzgerald while Logan was in the shower, so I grabbed a CD and put it on and bam, happy baby."

"Good to know."

"Yeah---all though, after you've told me about the conference and we've exhausted the important subjects, remind me to mock you mercilessly for owning that album."

"It's not mine, it's Logan's."

"Uh-huh. Likely story."

"Hey, every Jackson has his CCR."

"All right, fine, I'll believe it. So, how _was_ it?"

"It was good at first, and then it hit a new level of twisted that modern science has not yet been able to comprehend."

Lorelai stopped typing. "What? How so?"

This kind of thing was best kept short, sweet and to the point. She was far too exhausted for a rant, something she knew Lorelai would pick up on. "The big cheeses at Harcourt thought I was Honor and grilled me on Logan's intentions for the Huntzberger Publishing Group."

"Oh. Well. You're right, that's _totally_ normal."

"My sentiments exactly."

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**I really didn't mean for this chapter to take that long, but turns out I'm not the journalistic afficionado I fancy myself to be. God bless Google. XD (And for the record, I know **_**squat**_** about press conferences, I just did what I needed to do for the story.) PUH-LEASE REVIEW me, and you know I especially LOVE the detailed ones, oh PRITTY PRITTY PLEASE. Knowing you guys' favorite bits helps me do more of that kind of thing in the future, you know! THANK YOU everybody and more is on its way as we speak!**

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	12. White Flags And Male Bonding

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****

Next chapter, hot off the press, takes place the same week, step right this way.... ;)

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"Paris?"

Rory knocked on the door for a fourth time. Usually she only had to knock once, if even that, before Paris or Doyle or sometimes Nanny let her in, but today it was as if nobody was home. And yet, they _were_ home, since they'd known about the visit and since Oprah and the occasional loud crash could be heard inside.

"Okay, we tried, let's just forget it. We can always reschedule lunch. I'm free August thirty-fifth, so, any time after that would be just great."

Rory turned to Logan with her 'stop it' face. "We are not going to leave."

"We should check on Ellie."

"She's fine with Honor."

"Your article's not done."

"Yes it is too."

"Aw, man, you know what?" He patted his jacket as if her were looking for something. "I left my Zagat guide at your mom's..."

"You need a Zagat guide for Stars Hollow? There's Luke's and there's Weston's and there's Al's Pancake World; take your pick."

"I don't _have_ a Zagat guide, don't you recognize desperate excuses when you hear 'em?"

"No, I do, it's just more fun to mess with you." Logan rolled his eyes as Rory turned and knocked on the door again. "Paris? Doyle? We're getting funny looks from the suspicious-looking guy across the hall here...."

"Yeah, exactly, we'll be on the six o'clock news in a dumpster off Third," Logan muttered.

"Shush, you."

There was the sound of footsteps, part of a muffled conversation, and then finally the bolt on the handle clicked open. The door opened into the room and Doyle appeared on the other side, complete with dark circles and a look of sheer submission that was no doubt shaving years off his life.

"Hi, Rory, Logan! Look, it's Logan and Rory! Lory and Rogan are here, isn't that _great_?"

Rory looked the tiny former editor over. "Doyle? Uh, who ya talkin' to there? You okay?"

He didn't answer. Why? Because a dinner plate spiraled through the air behind him and smashed into the apartment's back wall.

"I _hate_ off-white! It's the reject non-color that wasn't even good enough to be white in the first place! _I_ wanted to get black dishes, but did anybody listen? No! 'Gee, Paris, these are on sale!' Well so is peyote! You wanna buy some of that too? We're getting new dishes!"

Doyle visibly flinched during the entire time Paris' voice came from the next room, and by the time she was off her tirade, he'd completely abandonned the idea of maintaining a cheery disposition.

This was a new facet of Paris' Paris-ness, even for Rory. "Has she been like this---"

"---since May? Yes," Doyle finished for her. "Anyway, come in, sorry about the guy across the hall, he just got his third divorce and he's kind of a loner."

Rory glanced at Logan, glad to find by his expression that she wasn't the only one disturbed by that. "I was kidding."

"I wasn't. Just ignore him and he'll go back to his soap operas."

"Uhhhh...wow. Okay."

Doyle shut the door behind them, and before anybody could make themselves as comfortable as possible---or run---Paris stormed out of the kitchen. She held an old receipt up in front of Doyle's face. "What is _this_ supposed to mean?"

"I..."

"Is this some kind of _hint_?"

"A...hint that I picked up the dry-cleaning?"

"Cut the backtalk, Cleesey. If you think for _one second_ I'm not onto you and your little mind-games, you got another thing coming. I'm supposed to pay for everything, aren't I? First it's little things, like dry-cleaning and snack cakes, then it's the rent, then the car payments, suddenly I'm sub-letting an island off the coast of Tierra Del Fuego. Not gonna happen, cheapskate!" In a fit of hormonal fury, Paris tore the receipt in half and threw it in the air before she stormed back toward her cave. Er, the kitchen.

Doyle made sure the coast was clear before he leaned in toward the others. "You see? You see now what I go through? All I did was leave a receipt on the counter!"

"Well..." Rory thought for a second, trying to help. "Maybe you could just...not leave receipts out. Don't give her the ammo."

"Oh, believe me, I've tried. Then she doesn't believe that I actually _did_ whatever it was she sent me out to do. One night last week I came home without one, and she _actually accused_ me of spending all my money on the slot machines at Ceasar's Palace. After I hit a strip club but before I embezzled her trust fund."

"Oh, boy."

"Yes. Exactly. I've never been this happy to sleep on the couch in my entire life."

Logan figured he'd chip in about now; go for the 'silver lining' angle. "When's she due?"

"Not for another month," Doyle grumbled. So much for silver lining. "In the meantime she's got me jumping through hoops---picking up prescriptions, running out at four in the morning for Melba Toast and Nutella...the other day she had me drive to _Franklin County_ because the video store there was the only one with a copy of Wide Angle with Bill Moyers."

"Isn't Franklin County in Massachusetts?"

"That's right." Doyle just looked dazed by now. He was sort of staring off into space across the room. "I have to wait 'till she's asleep to work anymore: last time I tried to edit a piece with her sitting there she did it _for_ me. Cut out every decent quote and left me with two paragraphs. Two paragraphs!"

"Okay, listen, Doyle, why don't you relax, we'll go have lunch, and...maybe hide your laptop from now on," Rory suggested. He nodded, and then Paris came back out.

"Oh, you're here, thank God, I feel like we haven't seen each other for _weeks_, you know? I really appreciate this." With no warning she plowed Rory over in a giant hug.

"Oh, my..."

Just as suddenly she moved back and held up two purses, a salmon-colored one and a brown one. "Which one?"

"Uh, well..."

She seemed to be looking at both of them, so Logan decided to field this one. "They both look fine; whichever one---"

"_Can_ it, blondie."

Doyle shot a look from Paris to Logan and back again. "Hon, I think he was just saying---"

"Oh, for the love of God, Doyle, his daddy can't hurt you anymore! Are you _still_ kissing his---"

"The brown one!" Paris stopped barking and everybody looked at Rory, who desperately wanted just to keep the peace and get through lunch with minimal bloodshed. "Take the brown one. Okay, Paris?"

Paris' expression was that of an easily sold child. "You're not just saying that?"

"No, I _really_ think it goes. Don't you guys?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely."

"Definitely sweetie, you look great. Honest."

"Well." She looked around the three of them, then smiled a little; a sign that the storm was ebbing. Either that or it was just a lull, which, face it, was more likely. "All right. Just let me go put this back and we'll be on our way. Be thinking of where you want to eat!"

The three of them watched her go. As soon as she was safely in the bedroom, Doyle spoke in a whisper. "This is worse than when she got ousted. I actually think I'm getting shorter."

Having gotten his two cents out, Doyle left the room to find his wallet. Rory and Logan traded a look that could only be described as part amused and part scared to move.

"And I thought _normal_ Paris was hard to take."

"Bet _my_ mood swings are looking like a walk in the park right about now, huh?"

"_Believe_ me; compared to _that_ you didn't _have_ any."

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"So then what happened?"

"Well, after she called the waiter an incompetent neophite and told him where he could stick his three percent tip, she sent the cucumber soup back twice and reduced the fully-grown maitre'd to tears. Not the worst outing Paris has ever had, but needless to say she's not gonna be welcome back at La Mangeoire any time soon."

"Yeah, no kidding." Lorelai went to dig another spoonful of ice cream out of the carton, but Rory used her spoon to bat her mother's away. "Hey! I had dibs on the swirly fudge part."

"No you didn't; it's on my side."

"_Your_ side? Who bought the ice cream?"

"Who went to Doose's to pick it up?"

"You wanna split it?"

"Yeah, okay."

As they both took their territory-claimed bite of the fudgy part, they turned their heads toward the playpen in Lorelai's kitchen to make sure the rugrats were still asleep. They were. It was cute: Ellie in her little striped onesie, Will with his dark brown hair all messed up on one side. Not just puppies-in-a-garden cute, but off-the-charts adorable.

Getting back to the subject, Rory dug her spoon in for another bite. "Doyle looked like he was about to be assasinated by firing squad any second."

"Poor kid. He's got a lot on his plate right now."

"He really does. Dealing with Paris twenty-four seven. I bet he could use a break."

"You know, I've been thinking the same thing about Luke," Lorelai mused. "I mean, not about the Paris thing, just as far as, you know, needing a break. He's been working really hard, and with Will and April and the diner...." Suddenly a light blub flicked on somewhere in the back of her head. "Hey! That's it! That's a _great_ idea!"

Rory stopped mid-fudge-swirl and gave her mother that cautious look. "Okay, you do realize you have to _say_ the idea before you can announce to the room that it's a great idea, right?"

"Not always."

"_What's_ a great idea?"

"Boys' night out. Give the guys a break."

"What guys---_our_ guys?"

"_All_ the guys."

Rory was a step behind. "All the guys..._ever_?"

"Yes, even the dead ones---Charlie McCarthy's been rarin' to get out for a few decades now..._no_, the guys! Stars Hollow's guys. Remember that time I sent your dad out for beer at KC's with Jackson after we eloped?"

"Stupidly eloped? Yes."

"Yes, stupidly eloped. Anyway, we should totally arrange something like that. Luke, Logan, Jackson, Doyle, Zach...get them away from PBS and pacifiers for a change. It'll be like a big, mass man-date."

"Ohhh, I gotcha!" Rory knew where she was going now. "That's actually a really good idea."

"I _told_ you! And while they're gone us womenfolk can round up the kids and have a girls' night in."

"You think they'll agree to it?"

Lorelai was about to answer when the front door banged open and Luke trudged up the stairs to the second floor, muttering the whole way about Ceasar and backorders and didn't anyone know how to _read_ something before they shipped it? With a satisfied grin, Lorelai faced Rory again. "I think there's a strong possibility."

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Honestly, he had no idea what he was doing here. Okay, so sure, the _last_ thing he wanted to do was stay back at the house with Lorelai and Sookie and the girls while they...painted their nails or...talked about...waxing, or whatever it is women did, but still. If they'd wanted to give him a break, why not send him fishing? Fishing was good. He saw no reason why he'd gotten rooked into going out for beer with the Stars Hollow Overworked Fathers Coalition.

Or why he'd gotten rooked into giving Zach a ride.

"Dude, I totally appreciate this, man."

Luke turned the wheel and gave a quick glance over to his part-time employee. "Sure, no problem..."

"I mean, I don't know how I woulda gotten out here. Me and Lane, we can't afford wheels yet, you know? Stiil savin' up. And when I asked Gil if I could use his van he was all, 'Dude, I got deliveries,' and I was all, 'On a Saturday night?' So then he was all---"

"Yeah, great story." So far, they'd been driving for ten minutes and he'd already heard about Steve and Kwan, Brian and Kyon, and whether or not the opening riff of Bad Bad Leroy Brown should be classified as classic folk or just some old dude with a bass. A few seconds of quiet time was way overdue.

"Anyway, I _so_ just needed to get out, you know? The timing's perfect. This was all your woman's idea right?"

"Yep, yes it was---oh look, we're here."

Luke pulled the truck into KC's parking lot and he and Zach got out. Apparently the others had just arrived too, because they were all walking toward each other from different cars on different sides of the parking lot. It was like O.K. Corral without the guns. The blonde with the leather jacket he knew, the one in the suspenders and rolled cap he knew, the short one with the Oxford he didn't recognize, and....

Oh, God. There was another one.

"_Luuuuuuuke_," the voice bellowed, "you didn't tell me about this little shindig! I had to find out from Lizzy of all people, now how do you think that makes me feel? I'm crushed, in fact I'm _so_ crushed, first beer's on you, a'right buddy?"

The six of them came together in the center of the lot. Right about now, Luke wished he could sink unnoticed into the earth itself, but since that wasn't an option, he made with the introducing. "Guys, this is TJ; TJ, you know Logan, Jackson, Zach, and this is..."

"Doyle," Doyle supplied. "And really, thanks for inviting me: I can't tell you guys how good it is to get out of there once in a while," he added. He was almost giddy. Hyper. To Logan, who'd driven, he was pushing annoying. So far this was setting up to be quite an evening.

In the interest of getting the ball rolling, Logan slung an arm across Doyle's shoulders---a gesture that would have made him Alumni's Pet back at the Daily News, by the way---and addressed the others with a smirk. "You'll have to forgive my good buddy Doyle here; he's a little excited to be outta Deadwood." Doyle didn't even argue.

"Well a'_course_ he is; he was _invited_," TJ mumbled.

Luke looked at Logan with a big forced smile in an attempt to convey to the younger man _exactly_ how much fun TJ's presence was. "Logan, you remember TJ," was code for 'I'm sorry in advance' and 'help me' and 'you see what I deal with?' all at the same time.

"Yeah, I do," he laughed. He knew that look. And since he'd gotten a good preview of TJ's antics at the wedding, at _both_ of them, he knew _why_. Logan held out a hand. "Good to see you again."

TJ shook it, oblivious to the signals. 'Oblivious' was his default setting. "Yeah, ditto!"

"Hey, listen, guys," Jackson cut in. "Why don't we head inside---I think the old women across the street think we just made a drug deal." He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at a gawking group of old ladies, then waved and shouted "Nice night, Mrs. Cassini!" Still with the staring.

"Yeah, okay, I think that's for the best." Luke threw a wary glance over to the observers before they all started across the parking lot. Nobody said anything on the way in, except for Zach under his breath going "da na NA na na NA na na na na na na" and bopping his head. Awkward, clearly.

Luckily it was a slow night, so there were six stools open at the bar. Good---that meant they didn't have to deal with a table. Luke ordered the first round, six beers were set down in front of them, and the six men proceeded to stare off into space and drink at them. Nobody could say they weren't social.

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Lane reached over and grabbed another handful of popcorn. "What do you think the guys are talking about?"

"Insurance!"

"No," Lorelai shook her head. "That's _my_ father."

Sookie giggled. "Oh. Right."

"Sports," Rory tried.

"Or cars."

"Or oh! Tools."

"Work."

"Fishing!"

"Radishes!"

Lorelai, Rory and Lane turned from the TV screen to give Sookie a confused look.

Sookie blinked. "What? Jackson likes produce, it could happen."

An unspoken 'And on that note' fell over them, and all four turned their attention back to the screen. It was just getting to the good part anyway.

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"Oh, _come_ on." Jackson slammed his second bottle down on the polished wood counter.

"_No way_," TJ demanded, "no way are you tellin' me the truth."

"I am too!"

Logan lifted the bottle to his lips for another drink, and when he brought it down a grin had come over his face. "I agree with him; I just wish I'd brought a camera."

"You're tellin' me that puttin' on The Discovery Channel puts 'em to sleep like _that_?" TJ snapped his fingers for emphasis on that last part.

"It'd put _you_ to sleep wouldn't it?"

"Well yeah, but I'm not a two-year-old."

"That's up for debate," Luke muttered, surpressing a smile.

Doyle was taking all this in like his life depended on it. "This is great stuff! What else you guys got?"

"Okay, umm...don't _ever_ do the Airplane game right after they eat."

A round of nods and emphatic "Oh, yeah"s passed around the group, and they all took another swig of beer.

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Phew! 'Nother one down. Hope you guys enjoyed. You know how much I LOVE SPECIFIC REVIEWS....^^.... More is on its way asap. Thanks guys.

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	13. The Old College Try

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**I AM SO SORRY! You guys have NO idea how much I HATE that it took me from September until February to update this story. (My Logan!muse was being fickle, silly richboy. ^_^ ) I promise *knocks on wood* never to take that long again! And, EVEN IF it takes me forty years in space, xD, I will never abandon this story. Now **_**that's**_** true love. ^^**

**Now. That does not mean that this chapter is all sunshine and roses. It's been a generally happy-go-lucky little saga so far, so expect some conflict. Danger, Will Robinson. ^^**

**Author shutting up now. ^^ (Oh: and this takes place 'round about September 2011; Ellie's about five months.)**

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You'd think it'd be difficult to fix the strap of your heel and walk at the same time, but Rory did it anyway. She didn't have time to stop moving. She had to be to work in twenty minutes, she was already running late, she couldn't find her edits and there was a wierd stain on the kitchen floor that she kept stepping in no matter _which_ way she went. 'Crappy morning' didn't _begin_ to cover it. There was no _time_ to cover it. How could she be expected to cover the crappy morning when she was supposed to be covering the Dubai piece? It was one or the other, people.

"Joanna, hon, there's soup in the fridge---and pie, have some pie, okay?"

'Joanna' was Joanna Walters, the sitter they'd hired to watch Ellie from eight to six. Which translated, most often, into 'eight to whenever someone got home.' It wasn't the ideal situatuion, and Rory could have sworn and slightly resented the fact that the twenty-four-year-old kept flirting with Logan, but with his schedule and her schedule it was impossible to do it any other way. They couldn't reasonably ask anyone from Stars Hollow to drive up and watch her every day, right? And it was just as unreasonable to drive her down there. Plus everyone they knew in the city had jobs of their own. At this point, it was either hire someone from a babysitting service, or bring the baby and her thirty pounds of supplies to their offices on a rotating basis. As 'Cheaper By The Dozen' as that might've been, it wasn't an option.

Unaware of just how much of her employment she spent on thin ice, Joanna smiled and nodded her understanding, and Rory ran-walked over to her and kissed the top of Ellie's feathery yellow-white hair. "Bye sweetie, be good, okay?" Snatching her purse, she added to her list on the way out. "If Mr. Huntzberger gets home early, he won't, but if he does, tell him Ellie's checkup got rescheduled---I left him a note but in case he doesn't read it---okay, have a good day you guys, bye!" And Rory shut the door behind her.

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"And a-one, two, three, four."

"Dude, could you not _do_ that?"

"Do what?"

"Sound like a Bee Gee."

"How could doing the countdown make me sound like a Bee Gee?"

"It's all peppy and bouncy. Countdown's gotta be angstier than that, man. It feels like I'm gonna play Britney Spears."

"Fine, how 'bout if I hold up a revolver while I do it, that'll help, right?"

Lane still held her sticks poised above the drums. There was no way of telling how long these arguments would last---some days it was two seconds, sometimes an hour---or who would be involved in them. She was surprised Brian hadn't chimed in yet: he was occupied at the moment with his bass strap and his inhaler. Wasn't he always. "Gil, get over it. Zach, just _do_ the countdown and try not to sound too excited about it." The boys were only going to be with Mrs. Kim for another measly two hours, and Lane was _not_ about to waste that by spectating an argument about a countdown for a song they hadn't even _started_ yet.

Zach rolled his eyes, and made sure his voice had extra 'I-don't-give-a-crap' in it. "Fine: one, two, three, four." On 'four,' he started to play the opening riff, and after Lane's downbeat Brian and Gil filtered in too.

"London calling, to the faraway towns / Now war is declared, and battle come down / London calling, to the underworld / Come out of the cupboard, you boys a---"

"We need new covers."

"_Oh_, my _God_." Zach's hand dropped from his guitar and he let his head roll toward the ceiling.

"Brian!"

"I'm _sorry_, I just think, we've been playing the same covers for like _seven years_, maybe it's time for a little variety."

Gil shrugged. "I'm good with a sound change."

Zach: "We been together seven years?"

Lane: "Keep up, Zach."

"No, no, wait, I got it, I got it!" Zach was afire with inspiration now---funny how he could turn it on and off like that. His attention span was...well...it sucked. Completely ignoring the other two, he whirled around to face the drumset. "Lane!"

Of course, that didn't help her figure out _why_. "Yeah, remember me? That chick you married that one time?"

"You can take the mic."

"What, like..._sing_?"

"Yeah! I mean not like full-_time_ or anything, you're a sweet drummer, but for a couple of singles or somethin'...."

"A couple of singles?" Lane stood up from her stool. Some people had to be sitting _down_ when they heard ridiculous things. Lane had to stand. "_No_, no no no no. _Less_ than a couple. Less than _one_. Equal with none, or less than none if that is in any way possible which I realize it isn't. I am _not_ going to sing lead."

"Oh, come on! You should _totally_ do it."

"No no no. I am not Joe Strummer, I am Terry Chimes. I'm Maureen Tucker, not Doug Yule! I'm Ringo, not John! Or...Paul; however you wanna look at that. I'm not Joan Jett, I'm a Blackheart! Is any of this painting a picture? I drum. That's it."

"Oh, like Ringo didn't do lead on like ten songs."

"How would _you_ know?"

"Is anyone else thinking we should totally play Helter Skelter now?" Brian's little interjection was less than appreciated. Lane and Zach turned to glare at him. Brian turned to adjust his amp. "Just saying."

"Okay, fine," Zach tried again, and Lane crossed her arms and looked at him. "What about Meg White, huh? You're _totally_ like Meg White."

"Well..." Crap. He had a point there. "I guess so, yeah."

"If _she_ can step out from behind the skins on Passive Manipulation then you can _definitely_ do a single."

"Passive Manipulation was like thirty seconds long."

Zach wasn't perceptive often---or _ever_, actually---but he could tell he was wearing her down, and he put his hands on her shoulders and made her look him in the eye. "Come on. Just give it a shot."

Lane shuffled a little in his grip, glanced down at the floor, looked back up again. It _would_ be pretty cool, if all went well...she could have a singing credit on their new album.... Well, that was if it ever came _out_, but that was a whole different issue. Finally, with a tiny little smile, she spoke. "Meg White, huh?" Surrender.

"All right!" Zach pulled her into a hug. "You _rock_, babe. You won't be sorry."

"Yeah, sure. _You_ guys might be, but whatever."

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"...So, anyway, obviously you're not home, but maybe give me a call when you are, okay? I don't wanna spill to your voicemail, but I'll leave you with this little tidbit: Meg White. Hooked, aren't ya? Okay. Call me." A _beep_ filled the apartment, followed by a robotic voice. "This message was received at: Ten. Twenty. Three. P. M. To delete, press seven. To save to the archives, press four."

Logan hit the 'four' as he passed the end table without so much as breaking stride.

"This message will be saved for: Fourteen. Days."

He'd hoped it would be a different message, honestly: one from Rory, preferably left within the last twenty minutes or so. She'd had to catch a big meeting this morning, and Logan had been missing her for...about a week and a half now. Not that he would have had time to call her back. His deadline for tying this tie correctly had passed about five minutes ago, about the time he'd been wiping coffee off the kitchen floor. An action which, by the way, made him question just how Luke-like he was actually becoming and who would ever choose to be in that profession.

Luckily, it wasn't Rory---that saved him from having to abandon the tie, trip over the couch and bash his foot into the table just to get back to the phone. This way, there was no tripping, no bashing, and he was free to fail at the tie again. Logan had spent enough time around Lane by now to know her voice over the phone, and for any non-Rory person at the moment, he was perfectly content to let the machine hang onto it. Again, not that he had a lot of choice either way. Six a.m. used to be his _bedtime_, for God's sake. Now, it was twenty minutes away, and he had that many to get to work or there'd be problems.

_Finally_. You'd think he was Rain Man for how long this stupid thing had taken him. He slid the knot up to his throat, only to realize he'd made it too tight and pulled it back again---no, no, wait, that wasn't the tie. The vague feeling of being strangled had already been there: huh, well, might as well tighten it back up then.

"Congratulations, you're a financial success, you're never home, and you're talking to a mirror. You are two secretaries and a comb-over away from your father."

"Did you say something, Mr. Huntzberger?"

Logan jerked his head over his shoulder to find Joanna in the middle of the living room, like ten feet behind and to the left of him---that must have been why he hadn't seen her in the mirror. Either that or she was well-enough alone, he turned and walked through the room. "Nothing," he dismissed. _Don't call me that. Never---don't you _ever_ call me that. Call me Logan, call me Hey You, call me George, just _don't _put that on me---I swear ot God the next place you pop up'll be the bus stop._

Not that they could afford to get rid of her, or actually would. In all truth, she was great with the baby---after all, who else would agree on no notice to show up two-and-a-half hours early?---and really, did they have any other choice? No. They didn't.

Where was the line between claiming responsibility and letting work control your life? Yeah, he got along with people at work; sure, he was doing great, closing deals, earning the respect his name had been getting him all along, breaking out from the life his father had set up for him; so what, fine, he actually enjoyed his job. It was still just a job. What did any of that matter if he missed his daughter's first words? Her first steps? What if Rory did? How had they _gotten_ like this?

The baby, that's how. The tiny little person they'd created, totally dependent on them, totally deserving of college and healthcare and food and a roof. This was responsibility, on the real world's terms, and it was a circular trap. No wonder he'd avoided it for the first twenty-four years of his life.

_Okay, no getting existential before the third cup of coffee._ Speaking of twenty-four years, Joanna was still behind him. Good God. "Is there anything you need before you go, Mr. Huntzberger?"

Logan gave her a practiced smile, about the same kind he give any other perfectly nice and slightly needling person who he logically knew was just trying to help. "No, Joanna, I'm fine. I'm better than fine; in fact I'm actually a little spoiled."

The sitter laughed harder than she should have at that. Wasn't even that funny. "You crack me up."

"Yeah, I was thinkin' of changing my name to Carlos Mencia," he said dryly. "My lawyer does not advise it." He wasn't even _looking_ at her, he was working on cufflinks, and still he could tell she was just _hovering_ there. Probably going to talk some more, too.

"Well, if you need anything, just let me know. And hey, I like your suit."

What do you know, right on the money. Grabbing his briefcase from behind the couch---God knows how it got there---Logan managed a tight smile and a brisk nod. He never claimed to be a master of discretion when it came to not giving a crap. At least he'd made it successfully to the door---wait....

"What's the matter? Forget something?"

"Just...I'll be right back."

It only took a second to get to the bassinet on the other side of the room. The blue-eyed little belter had made it knows two hours ago that she needed a bottle, and she hadn't gone back to sleep since, so he didn't need to worry about startling her or waking her up. She was docile, content and currently fascinated by a plastic block when Logan reached in and carefully picked her up. "Hey, sweetie, c'mere. Yeah, there we go."

He almost had to laugh. Before _this_ little thing, if some cousin or other had asked him to hold their baby, he would have held onto it like a football at arms' length or something. At least the first few times. Now, it was like he couldn't get her close enough to him. At that moment Logan would have given twenty thousand dollars just to stay home, stay here, just for one day.

But he'd have to _earn_ that twenty-thousand first.

Ellie had her big blue eyes fixed on him---there was no doubt in the world that she was part Gilmore. She hadn't quite gotten ahold of any words yet, but the word-like cooing noises she made as she reached a chubby arm out at him were cute anyway. Watching her put a smile on Logan's face, taking the 'bitter' out of 'bittersweet' for the moment being.

"What's that? Oh, _yeah_---I _knew_ I could successfully work a tie, you're right, thank you."

Ellie giggled. Logan grinned.

"You're laughin' at me now? Okay, so it took me five minutes; I blame your mildly stalkerish babysitter, what about you, you good with that?"

"Mr. Huntzberger?"

Startled, Logan turned halfway. _Oh, that, she hears. What do you wanna bet...._

Joanna pointed toward the clock on the side table. "You're five minutes late leaving."

"Oh, crap." Logan kissed the baby's forehead, whispering, as he sat her back down with her toys, "Bye kiddo. Remember, hit her with the good _loud_ crying." Long strides, half jogging, four steps to the door, left hand briefcase, right hand doorknob, and he was gone. It would be another four hours before he uselessly realized his watch was still in the kitchen, but really, what did it matter anyway?

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She'd pay Joanna later.

That was Rory's only justification. She was sure, with more time, with a good amount of thought and maybe a pro-con list, she could have come up with something better, but for now that was all she had. She needed _some_ kind of justification for what she was doing, but she didn't want to think too hard about it, either. Thinking straight was something she wasn't doing right now, and in the few moments she _was_ thinking straight, it usually led to guilt that, instead of going home after work, she was on the highway.

Rory flicked on the windshield wipers, but they didn't do any good. She tried blinking a few times instead---huh, what do you know, that one worked. She turned on the radio and turned it off again. She couldn't get comfortable. Nothing was how it was supposed to be. Vaguely, she realized she wasn't thinking that because of the Prius.

As soon as her second draft had been submitted, she'd walked out the door. Numbly she'd gotten in the car. She found herself turning left instead of right, taking the interstate instead of the road uptown, knowing exactly where she was going, but without thinking or knowing why.

Listening to the faint click of the turn signal, Rory took the exit marked 'Stars Hollow, two miles.' Everything seemed desensitized, everything was automatic---it felt, to her, like she was walking through her own life in a monotonous walking coma.

Thinking was dangerous right now. She cut off the thinking, as best she could anyway, for the next two miles, then for the turn and for as long as it took after that until she was driving past the gazebo again, slowing from eighty miles an hour to twenty and picking up her cell phone from the passenger seat.

It was a good thing she didn't have to dial manually at the moment; she was pretty sure she didn't have the focus for individual button-pushing. She hit the speed-dial for Lorelai. It rang. Then it rang. It rang and it rang, and just when it must've thought it would be funny to ring some more, she heard a click.

"Hi, you've reached Lorelai 'The Governator' Gilmore-Danes, so if you leave your name and number, don't bum out---'_I'll be back_.' ...Aaaand, _wow_, was _that_ a terrible impression. Okay. Talk please---"

Rory forcefully pressed the 'end' button and tossed the phone back onto the passenger seat. There was nothing she could say to a recording that would do her any good. She needed her mom. She needed all of them. Not yet another person's voicemail.

Without really thinking about it---maybe _now_ she was finally catching on---Rory pulled the Prius up in front of Luke's Diner, let it roll to a stop, shifted the gear into park. She unclipped the belt and de-tangled herself from it, let it wind back into the socket. In her haze, she wasn't even sure whether she'd turned off the engine or not---she might have left it running, who cared---and she got out, slammed the door behind her, folded her arms against the world, found her way to the door.

It opened with a jingle; shut of its own inertia. Luke looked up from the register. Between the force on the door and the look on Rory's face, it only took him a good four seconds to lay down his stack of order receipts. Wiping his hands on his shirt, he came around from behind the counter. "Rory...!"

She tried not to give any ground. Crossing her arms again, she shifted from one foot to the other. Her eyes darted unsteadily around the diner before landing on Luke's face. "Is, uh...is my mom here? Is she around or...?"

"Whoa, whoa, Rory...what's going on here? Talk to me." He laid a hand on her shoulder, did his best to look her in the eye, but she kept averting.

"Do y---do you know where she...?" She couldn't even make herself finish that sentence.

"Rory, hey, hang on now." If he hadn't already gotten the hint---he had, for the record---Luke knew by now beyond a doubt that something was clearly not right. He knew, too, from years of experience, that no one could cure it quite like Lorelai, but he'd be a failiure if he didn't do all he could to be the next best thing. He kept his voice gentle, his caring blue eyes trying to discern the problem from out of hers. "I don't know where your mom is right now, the inn, probably...what's wrong?"

Rory looked down at the floor. She sniffed back a round of tears that she _did not want_ to let out, but something in Luke's tone, the obvious concern written all over his kind, scruffy, familiar face...something about it broke all her best intentions, and she lost it.

Immediately Luke pulled her in, and before her first tear had even finished its trip he had her in a hug, and it landed on flannel.

Rory hugged back, clinging to Luke like the father figure he'd always been, and the words poured out of her between sobs. "It's just.... Everything's falling apart. I can't _do_ it, I can't _handle_ it! It wasn't supposed to _go_ this way. I n-never get to s-_see_ her or _be_ with her, every time I'm home there's something else that needs doing, it seems like I'm only around when she's s-sleeping, o-or, she...she has a doctor's appointment.... I never get to see my own _daughter_, what if she starts walking or says 'mommy' and I'm not there?" Letting out a particularly wracking sob, she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "And mom, I never get to see mom anymore or even talk to her, or you or Will or anybody.... And I know I'm n-not the only one, I know n-none of this is f-fair to Logan, but I haven't seen him or talked to him in days, it's like we don't even _live_ together, and I _miss_ him, I need him there, and I know he's doing his best too and I'm proud of him but---I can't do this! I can't, I'm failing...!"

"Hey," Luke interjected, softly, but firm. "You are _not failing_. You hear me?"

"I am, I can't do it..."

"Rory."

"I'm failing."

Luke let out a sigh. He knew, right then, that there was nothing more he could say. Not now. What she needed most right now was probably exactly what she was doing: a good rant, and a good cry. So he tightened his arms around her, and he let her.

"It's okay," he assured quietly. "Everything's gonna be okay."

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Well. Nothing like a meltdown to really wear a girl out.

The door to the apartment opened, giving way to the same living room, the same couch, the same konked-out babysitter. The same mess. No magic wands, no fairy dust...nothing had magically changed.

Completely listlessly, totally exhausted, Rory dropped her purse and keys and laptop case by the door. Like a zombie, she used the back of her hand to wipe a little bit of her stupid non-waterproof mascara off her cheek---most of it had come off on the napkins Luke gave her, but it was stubborn stuff, like its owner---and she shuffled her feet forward until they walked her to the blinking machine.

She pressed the button. Robo-voice came on. "You have. One. New message."

Beep. "Hey, it's me. I've gotta work late tonight---there's a big presentation on the fifth that we gotta be ready for, so we're pulling a few late-nighters this week. Hope that doesn't screw with any plans, I know Ellie's got that appointment on Friday.... Ah, anyway, they're callin' me in, I'll catch you later. Don't wait up. And _call me_ whenever you get in. Bye."

Beep.

"This message was received at: Seven. Thirty. One. P. M. To delete, press seven. To save to the archives, press four. End of messages."

Rory pressed nothing. She _did_ nothing. Turning off the light, she rotated toward the direction of the bedroom. And went to bed.

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"Hi, it's me. Sorry I missed you...again...I guess I...got home late, or something? Well. I, uh, I left you a note about the appointment, I guess you haven't gotten it. So. I'm just gonna go to bed now, I'd wait up anyway but it's been a very Francis Farmer kind of day for me. Give me a call when you can. I love you. Bye."

The disappointment was obvious on his face as he snapped his phone shut, but he didn't have the neccesary moment to dwell on it.

"Logan."

He looked up.

"C'mon man, Gutierrez is waiting downstairs for the update pitch. With any luck he'll have a check signed by night's end."

With one nod and without another word, Logan stood, re-buttoned his suit jacket. Turning his phone off, he followed Vick out the door.

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**Toldja. Trouble in paradise. ^^ Rogan keep missing each other, they had to get a nanny, their successful careers are turning them into the kind of workaholic people they wanted never to be...will all this resolve itself? How or when will that be? Will it take me under five freakin' months to update again this time? XD You'll just have to tune in and see.**

**THANK YOU SO MUCH to all the people who have favorited and are loyally watching this story. Especially those of you who give specific reviews, because that really helps me. You have NO idea how cool that is of you guys. 3 Next chapter's on its way. **

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